Several years ago I noticed my neighbor was doing some major construction in his backyard. After some neighborly conversation at the mailbox, Jim indicated he was building a tree house for his ten year old son. ” He wants to experience roughing it for a few nights and later inviting his friends over for a sleep over”. What is that old saying,” Best laid plans of mice and men”.
When the tree house was completed it could have been rented for an Air B&B, no detail had been overlooked. After a one night father-son stay the son did not care for the “roughing it” experience. The son is brilliant and may be a Pulitzer Prize recipient one day.
This of course took me back to my first tree house, which was more of a perch than a tree house. The large oak tree in our back yard offered the perfect solitude for what I wanted. First, it allowed me to escape the wrath of my older sisters who had taken an oath to destroy their younger brother before the age of twelve. Second, the only access to my “tree house” was to climb to the roof of the garage and cling to the large oak limb leading to the main section of the oak. It only took minutes to determine the perfect spot for the tree house. The scrap lumber and wooden tobacco sticks were hoisted by a makeshift rope and boy power. To avoid attention, most of the construction took place when I knew my sisters were out of ear shot conniving ” what can we do to him next”.
Needless to say upon completion, the perch was more of an “accident waiting to happen” than a place of solitude. I did not acquire my grandfather’s carpentry skills. However it did pass the “pounds per square foot” test and made me feel like a king on his throne. I spent many a day enjoying my Johnny cakes, hoop cheese, and Pepsi surveying my kingdom. It was a few years later that Mother Nature in the form of Hurricane Hazel (1954) came through my small town and took my “tree house” with it.
Be safe
