THE
TREE HOUSE
Long
long ago and, far far away their lived four little boys,all of them
in the eyes of there parents were a wonder to behold.
In actuality,
it was not that long ago or quite so far away. It was the late 80s
and early 90s in Knik, near Wasilla Alaska, but in the halls of ones
childhood memories it was another life on another wondrous planet.
They were and are THE STONE BOYS and in order of age they are Tim,
Brian, Brent and of course myself. I also had two sisters Caroline
and Lila. Caroline was the oldest of us all and as Dad put it, ”she
was a good first sergeant.” She was also my hero, and being ten
years older than me, she was the ultimate in cool. Lila was one of
those people who was born with a cookbook in hand who meant business
in her dealings with her mischievous little brothers but who had a
kind heart. But that is another story.
This story begins on a warm
Alaska spring day, warm being about thirty degrees. Since it had
gotten warm enough to play
outside in shorts a t-shirts I was
engaged in my favorite past time which was to turn over rocks, logs,
motor homes or anything
that might house an interesting insect. I
was turning over and scattering one of my fathers carefully stacked
piles of scrap
lumber when the greatest idea ever conceived of
popped into my head. Of Course!! We had trees, scrap lumber, and I
new where
there were cans of old nails and a hammer EUREKA !! I got
all my brothers together and told them my idea. “I don't know,”
Brent
said, “shouldn’t we ask dad if we can use his stuff?”
“Oh dad won't care,” Brian put in (incidentally Brent and Brian
are twins).
Tim liked the idea immediately and we set to work. Our
cousin and close confidant Wayne also joined us for the project and
added his good ideas as well. Right away we realized that we would
have to build it between several trees because their was no one tree
big enough to house it. Behind our house there was a seemingly
endless forest with lakes and game trails untouched and unspoiled,
except for four mischievous little boys.
We
found five trees that were big enough and in a rough circle and began
to dream of the glories of our soon to be fortress of civilization in
the untamed wilds. Just then we heard
Lila calling us into eat and
realized that some unscrupulous power in the universe invariably put
lunch time right in the middle
of a budding a epiphany. We would
not even consider failing to respond to our mothers summons however,
both because it would
inevitably result in a spanking and the fact
that our mother was an unsurpassed cook and thus her meals were
nearly always
something to look forward to.
I
say nearly always because she would quite often cook a tasty meal and
then introduce brussel sprouts or garbanzo beans or in the case of
breakfast Oatmeal or some other unsavory dish that was "GOOD FOR
US" Regardless
when mom called us for lunch WE WENT. After
lunch we started looking for the longest cleanest pieces of scrap
lumber
to nail from one tree to the next to form an odd looking
pentagon about ten feet off the ground and ten or twelve feet
across.
About that time Brent reiterated his belief that we should
have asked dad if we could us his lumber or if we could build a
tree
house at all. Brian and Tim and I all assured him that no one would
care. In retrospect he was right, but even had we
considered that,
we would not have allowed such legalism to ruin such a wondrous
adventure. Fortunately Tim was about twelve
at the time and new
more about "safe building techniques" than the rest of us,
else we would probably have hurt ourselves
quite badly. After the
frame work was complete "which took us most of the day because
none of us were skilled with a hammer and we had to lift the boards
into position using ropes slung over higher branches" we started
looking for boards
that would work for the floor of the structure
that was to be the bastion of hope against savages and aliens alike.
Being spring
it still got dark at night so we had to go inside and
have dinner and do the after dinner dishes.
After
dinner Dad would put on
an old movie usually a western. I remember
him sitting on the end of the couch with his big ceramic coffee cup
and his old brass ash tray watching the movie. I remember he was such
a big man then with a big grayish brown beard that started just
bellow his eyes and ended somewhere under his shirt. I would always
try to sit beside dad and he would put his arm over the
back of the
couch and thus behind me and watch the movie. The smell of cigarettes
and coffee and dad in his place on the couch made the house we lived
in the home that I loved. Over the next few weeks we worked on the
tree house when we could and it really came together nicely. We built
walls about three feet high all around it and found some buckets
and
an old bus seat for chairs. We couldn't put a roof on it because by
that time we had run out of lumber and most of the nails were used up
and spilled all over the forest floor. But to us, roof or no roof
that was Fort Dix and the Ritz all rolled into one.
The only down
side other than falling out of it more than once was a few days later
Dad was clomping around the yard looking irritated and obviously
searching for something and as fate would have it he found ME. I was
playing out by the tree line on an old pile of shingles tearing them
up to see the ants and their eggs underneath when I heard, "ROY
COME HERE"
When it came to my dad you didn't hesitate when
given a command. I honestly think he could get a bear to grovel
through
nothing more than his intimidating presence. While I didn't
hesitate to obey I felt a profound reluctance because I knew tone of
voice. It was the tone that said something is broken, torn, misplaced
or stolen and I know it was you, and it usually was. The question
when I found him standing at the front of his homemade 'A' frame shop
was, What happened to all my lumber, and where's my hammer?
"Fortunately he hadn't noticed the missing hand saw". I
remember giving one of those
noncommittal shrugs. You know the one
that does not say "I don't know" but does not say "I
don't want to tell" either.
Unfortunately
though well practiced, those kind of shrugs didn't work on my dad and
the truth of the matter was quickly discovered and I think it went
something like this..... WHAT THE .... I CAN'T BELIEVE.....I.. ARE
YOU NUTS?
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”
Looking back on that I don't
remember whether we got spanked for that or not but i'll assume that
we didn't since dads spankings were not something you would soon
forget.
I'm afraid I have to go now because my son is disassembling
my favorite headphones. AAAHHHRRRGGGG!!!
ROYAL
FRANKLIN
STONE
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