The Tree Fort

I was at that age: before girls but beyond army men and Hot Wheels racers.

That summer, I discovered tree forts; I discovered them quite by accident.

It was 1970. Griffiss Air Force Base in Upstate New York. My dad had gotten me a Swiss Army Knife for my birthday in the narrowing days of summer. I was 10. It had a dozen different blades and gadgets … two were the most interesting. One was a fish scaler, which, despite my bad luck at landing fish, I eagerly awaited its use. The other was a saw which must have been made more for esthetic appeal than practical application (given its 4-inch length and ¾ inch profile). Nevertheless, I was excited by its potential.

I had noted some saplings in the woods during a recent expedition and made haste to fell them. They stood about 15 or 20 feet tall and were, at their bases, 2 to 3 inches in diameter. I moved to the first and began sawing. I sawed and sawed and sawed. Then I sawed some more. At the end of my day’s work, 3 lay lifeless on the ground. I stripped them of their branches and foliage and laid them side by side; I stood there admiring these barren log poles, wondering what I might do with them. Except for the white blister that had surfaced on the first joint of my right index finger, the day’s sawing had been rewarding.

The next morning, I summoned my two friends – Mark Hartnett and Pete Worch – to examine my handiwork. Both boys were in the Boy Scouts, and I admired that. Unfortunately, ever since my mom had heard that some of the prepubescent boys-in-green hoarded Playboy magazines they had pilfered from “paper drives,” any talk about joining the Scouts had been squelched. I took a run at her several times to get her to change her mind, explaining that “even if some of the Scouts looked at Playboys, I never would.” But she persisted … I’d have to live my Scouting life vicariously through Mark and Pete.

The Scouts did cool things, of course: they went on jamborees, built campfires, slept in tents, earned badges, did paper drives, and looked at Playboy magazines. I hated the fact I stood on the outside looking in. But I had a Swiss Army Knife that could scale fish and fell sapling trees! I felt this put me at parity with Mark and Pete … at least for the day.

Mark was the senior of the two and haltingly spoke after they had carefully examined the log poles. “I saw this at Fall jamboree,” he said. “First they cut down the trees and stripped them bare, then they used them to build a bridge that crossed a ravine.”

Pete – always the sober thinker – pointed out there were no such gorges in our woods, but that the poles could provide a foundation for a tree fort. (In retrospect, Pete must have known what he was talking about because he went on to become an aeronautical engineer and designed stuff for military aircraft.)

Gosh! Why didn’t I think of that? A tree fort! Home away from home … my own domicile … my own rules … my own world!

After racing home, we returned with hammers and a handful of 30-penny nails. Looking around, we spied 3 juvenile maples standing together, each approximately 12 feet from the others. We shinnied up and managed to anchor all 3 poles … each one horizontally to the ground about 10 feet up, spanning from tree #1 to tree #2, from tree #2 to tree #3, and from tree #3 to tree #1. A perfect triangle.

Our plan for the rest of the structure was simple: we wanted a floor, walls, and a roof. A rummage through the collective parents’ garages yielded some pegboard, short sections of 2x4s, and a number of small scraps of plywood, but nothing sufficiently beefy for the floor. We’d need help.

It was getting late in the day. It had been at least half an hour since the National Anthem played. (Every night at 5 o’clock, the base’s air raid siren would sound, then the Star Spangled Banner would play over the PA system. One could hear it anywhere on the base. I always thought it was cool the way my dad would stop in his tracks, face the source of the music, and salute throughout the engagement.) We had accomplished a great deal but the project would be on hold until we could find suitable flooring.

My dad and I arranged to visit the Base’s dump. His schedule didn’t meet with my own urgent needs, thus it was several days before we were able to go.

The dump was strewn with debris. An old toilet. Car and truck tires. An old boot. All kinds of garbagey stuff. What seemed most plentiful, though, were pallets. These weren’t the kind of pallets one sees today at Costco. These were massive pallets – the kind used to ferry cargo onto huge military aircraft, and the kind that would be perfect for a tree house floor. We tied one to the top of my dad’s 1968 Pontiac Bonneville and drove to the edge of the woods where we offloaded.

The next day, Pete, Mark, and I slaved to hoist the pallet onto the log poles and nail it in place. Then we jury-rigged walls with the 2x4s, pegboard, and scraps of plywood … we crowned it with an old tarp. With the walls and ceiling in place, the three of us were able to stand fully upright. In unison, we bent our knees slightly and bounced just a little. The pallet-on-log-pole construction withstood the challenge. So we bounced higher – three 70-pound lads. Success! Immediately we were raucously jumping and bumping, screaming and shrieking. The floor stood still in defiance.

We had done it. We had built an indestructible tree fort.

Through much pleading and crying, we each got our folks to agree to let us sleep out in the fort that first night.

Anticipation couldn’t have been higher, even though the fort was less than 100 yards from our homes, and the camping experience wouldn’t be much different from when we slept in pup tents in our backyards. Nevertheless, I rolled my sleeping bag tightly, tied it off with hemp twine, slung it over my shoulder, and embarked on my journey. This night, I’d sleep in the wild. The two scouts and I, with only my Swiss Army Knife as a defense against intruders.

We convened and swore our allegiance to the fort. We agreed there’d be no girls. And Pete talked about petitioning my mom again so that I could join the Scouts.

As the sun fell from the sky, we switched on our flashlights, and Mark Hartnett pulled out a Playboy magazine.