Tree Forts

It’s time for more stories from my youth.

Growing up, I loved climbing trees (actually, I still do, but the frequency of said activity has certainly decreased – I blame lack of climbable trees in my yard). In addition to climbing them, I also loved building forts in them.

In our backyard, we had (have? I guess so, they’re still there) two big Silver Maple trees – one in each corner of the yard. My dad built us an awesome fort in and around one of them. It still stands today, 20 years later. My parents have friends with young children who come over to play in it (the children, not the adults). I look at it now and wonder how I ever fit in it – it’s not that large.

I guess I was so happy with that tree fort that I needed to build another. Over around the other maple tree I built a shack. It was ugly and dangerous. I don’t recall exactly where I got all the wood for it, but it surrounded the base of the tree (while not IN the tree per se, it can still be considered a tree fort since it was a fort that used a tree as it’s main support structure).

Man, was that thing an eye sore.

There wasn’t a level board in the place and there were nails sticking out everywhere. But it didn’t matter. My friends and I still had a ton of fun in it. We even built a zip line and a little stand to land on. That was a blast, but it was the most rickety thing ever. A neighborhood kid did fall and get a minor concussion once. Ah, those were the days…good times.
Eventually I had to dismantle it because I think the neighbors complained. For years though, I had dreams and aspirations to build out my dad’s tree fort even bigger, but unfortunately they were never realized.

I look forward to the day when I can build a tree fort for my son.