Story In a Jar: Hanging Out

Q: Did you and your friends have a special hang-out where you liked to spend time?

Short Answer: Not really.

Long Answer: The house we lived in through most of my elementary school years had an incredible tree house. I haven't seen it as an adult, so who knows if my memory of the fort's awesomeness is accurate, but as a kid it was a sanctuary. In the far end of our backyard was a stand of old trees, and the tree house sat high in between them. I couldn't tell you it's dimensions, perhaps about 5 or 6 feet square. Under the tree house was an open platform on the ground level. The way into the main house was through a hatch in the floor. I don't know why we didn't have a ladder. We would jump up and grab the floor through the hole and then loop our legs up and pull ourselves in. We would get out in reverse fashion, or if we were brave we could exit a window that led to a porch-like ledge wrapping around two sides of the fort. From there we could jump to the ground, feet tingling and adrenaline pumping. 

The tree house was really only a square box, but it gave us a place to play rain or shine, which was pretty handy in Oregon. Before we moved in someone had painted a dalmatian mural on one wall, which we decided to improve upon one day only to make an ugly mess. But that was okay, because this was a place to make our own. We didn't have any furniture or other comforts, but that didn't stop us from feeling right at home.

A few memories stand out from my years playing in the tree fort.

1) One wintry day, my brother and I brilliantly decided to try ice skating on the little goldfish pond in our front yard. It didn't go well. As we stood in the cold, shin-deep water, we decided it would be better to go hide in the fort rather than let our mom see the evidence of our sopping shoes and pants. We huddled out there shivering until our mom called for us. I don't know how we expected to dry out in the cold, which we obviously did not, and now we had to explain both the reason for our wet clothes and why we were hiding in the fort. Not our brightest hour.

2) I received a gift of a makeup set, consisting mainly of intense blue eye shadow. This was the '80s, so you can imagine the shade. My friend came over to play one day and we proudly and masterfully applied the eye shadow, being sure to completely cover our lids from lash to brow. Because, you know, that's how it's done. Afterward, we went out back to spend some time in the tree fort. A couple of boys who lived in the house behind ours could see us through the fort window and came running over. Up close, they breathed a sigh of relief. "We wondered how you had gotten black eyes," they admitted, and we all had a good laugh.

3) There was a period of time when we steered clear of the vicinity of the fort simply because it stank. An opossum had wandered under the lower platform to die, and we didn't know how to remove its rotting corpse. Ewww! We basically waited out its decomposition and went back to playing once it passed the cautiously administered smell test.

4) Our backyard bordered several other homes where kids around our ages lived. We spent lots of hours with those kids, mostly in our yard. A neighbor boy was about a year older than me, and one day up in the tree house he got kind of quiet. Out of the blue, he signed the words, "I love you." Very sweet, but I was awkward and silently stood there. He continued by saying, "Do," followed by the signs for, "you love me?" Have I mentioned I was awkward? I just replied, "No," and watched him deflate. And that was the extent of my tree house romances.