Tree House

When I was eleven years old my best friend and I began work on what we considered the greatest tree house in the world.

The tree we chose was oak and one of several that were located on a hill in my backyard. This particular tree had two sets of v-shaped branches one set about five feet above the other which provided a perfect foundation and perfect roof support.

At the bottom of our street was an old bridge that was being torn out and replaced. The wood from the old bridge was set aside waiting to be hauled to the dump. So we were able to "borrow" as many boards as we needed. We scrounged our nails from an old reservoir that had become a dumping ground for the neighborhoods cast offs.

Once we began building we realized that we had enough wood and the perfect branches for a two-story tree house. Each floor was about 15 foot by 10 foot. Both floors were entered via doorways near the ladder. My parents were replacing the carpet in the house so we took the scraps and had wall-to-wall carpet in our tree house. We ran extension cords from the garage for electricity and we were set with all of the comforts of home.

We hauled an old screen door up to the top of a neighboring tree and that became our look out station. From there we could see any cars approaching our little street and keep tabs on whose parents were coming home and shout a warning to them.

In another tree just up the hill we had an old board swing that allowed the rider to just clear the top of the tree house. If they were daring enough they could leap from the swing and land on the roof.

Many summer nights were spent sleeping in that tree. We would tune our old AM radio to KHJ turn down the lights and tell ghost stories until we drifted off to sleep.

When I needed to escape the real world for a while I would bring a book and lay on the roof of the house and read for hours. Usually until the sun went down or until my mother called me for supper whichever came first.

After I moved out my brother, who was five years younger, tore down the old tree house and planned on building a new one but he never got around to it. Sometimes even now I wish I could climb back in that old thing and escape for a while.