SECRET HIDEOUTS
Every boy wants a secret hideout. It's a place for boys to fart, play with matches, tell dirty jokes, practice swear words and spitting, smoke a cigarette smuggled out of a parents pack, look at a Playboy magazine found under an older brother’s mattress or drink a beer stolen from the corner store.
The first neighborhood secret club I remember was when I was around six or seven. Mrs England our widow next door neighbor lived in a large two story victorian house surrounded with large Rhododendron bushes. Between her house and the bushes created a really cool place to hide. We had a secret place where no-one could see us.
Little boys pee everywhere so it was naturally a great place to pee. The secret lasted until my mother told me at dinner that Mrs England called and wants us to stop peeing in her bushes, busted.
In spite of this we continued to hide out in her bushes. One day I went to the spot we designated as our peeing area. As I started to pee I heard a tapping noise so I looked up. There she was looking right at me as she shook her finger. Unfortunately the spot we picked to pee was directly under her bay window. That was our last day in that spot.Another spot was near my great grandparents house. There was an A&P grocery store next door. The parking lot was built on a spoil pile from an old coal mine. We discovered it was easy to dig a cave under the black top. Over the summer it grew larger and more elaborate. It was in a place it would not flood. Most of our cave dwellings lasted until the first hard rain.
Because it was on the edge of the parking lot no one noticed it because no one parked over it. One day an employee drove his new pickup truck to work. To avoid door dings he parked on the edge of the parking lot directly over our cave. By lunch time the blacktop had heated in the hot summer sun and the truck dropped into the hole.
It made the news paper and every kid in the neighborhood was questioned. No one squealed, an early test of the snitches get stitches rule.
We built huts with straw bails. We built plenty of temporary shelters in the woods because they are really temporary.
We found a shack deep in the woods. We assumed it was abandoned but it had hundreds of empty white port wine bottles in piles. There were a couple of chairs and random junk. It was a great place to get warm and hang out.
One Saturday morning we met at the shack to find Al Gallespie the local town drunk passed out on the floor. At first we thought he was dead but he woke up yelling. So much for our secret hideout.
We lived on a wooded lot next to an apple orchard. There was a large Oak tree on the tree line. I'm not sure how it happened but my dad out of the blue offered to build a tree house. This was out of character for my dad I usually had to bug him about letting me build something.
Looking back I think my dad was tapping into his own childhood fantasy. He grew up during the depression so as a child he had to work. One job he told me about was digging through the shale piles that came out of the Pennsylvania coal mines to find the small lumps of coal they had missed. I know he didn't have the care free childhood I experienced.
He used the excuse that he wanted to make sure it was safe but he sure had a twinkle in his eye and smile on his face. The platform was 35 feet off of the ground. It had a trap door entrance. Two wooden ladders were lashed to the tree trunk to climb the tree safely. By todays standards this would be child endangerment.
I think because of the danger nobody ever got hurt, Rolf and I slept in it many summer nights. Climbing the ladder was frightening at night so we usually went up at dusk and didn't come down until morning. I spent many hours watching the leaves, birds and clouds.
I grew older and lost interest in my tree house. I had discovered cars and girls so my hiding place shifted to my car. The ladders had been taken down to store in the shed to get them out of the weather. Years after I moved out, on a visit I noticed what was left of my tree house. I climbed the tree one last time to take it down.
My father had passed away so the memories of our time working on our treehouse came rushing back. Of all of my secret hideouts this was the best, that includes my cars.
Tree houses still fascinate me. I could see living in one someday. I have a coffee table book of amazing tree houses from around the world. I turn into a little boy again every time I look through it.
