Current mood:
calm
Here is the much anticipated follow up to my last autobiographical blogcalmFORTS
Like most boys of my generation, I assume, when you are small there are 2 things you like to do... play sports... and play WAR! Now for any girls who might be reading this and didnt actually play war yourselves... you may be asking "what could have possibly been so appealing about war... you pretend to shoot each other and thats it" WRONG miss mam... why dont you just shut if for a moment and let me finish the story... ok!? jeez...
To myself and every other self respecting 'war hero in their own mind' ,war consisted of shooting each other with guns made of plastic, sticks, imaginary bazookas, throwing pine cone grenades that wounded both the thrower and those it had to touch to explode on, only about 10% of the time we played war. Preparation for war was the good stuff.
Living in a largely wooded area, most of our forts were "miles into the jungle" and through that entire stretch of tree line, a vast number of trails had to be cut out. Cutting trails was an enormous task. I remember one secret trail that stretched from our secret point of operation beneath a holly tree to my neighbor brandon's well guarded 'old doghouse' fort. The doghouse fort was awesome.. I was always a little jealous of it. It wasn't like a small house for a dog... it was rather a fenced in area with a flat plywood roof. It had a working 'lockable' door and a corner of it had its seperate fencing.. I think it was were the dog food was kept... but had been transformed into a prison/interigation room. There were many occasion where captured prisoners would sit in that extremely airy and comfortable cell for many a long minute until a raid party would run by and touch the door freeing them instantly. Back to the trail... the secret trail took me and my brother about a week and a half to cut before we could even use it for suprise attacks. When I say week and a half... I dont mean for an hour or so. I mean from the time we awoke til the time the sun had set minus lunch, dinner, and chores we were out there cutting trails. There about 5 total passages in all. The main line, 2 backup escape routes in case the our trail was overrun with the enemy and 2 lines that went nowhere... it was to confuse the enemy if they happened upon the trail randomly.
You're probably thinking... "you guys take this war thing seriously"... well your damn right!.. this is life or death for the remainder of game of war!! unless you have a 'certified medic' (anyone) that knows how to revive you.
Apart from the doghouse... there were 3 major bases that ran along the horse trails behind our homes. The greatest and most tragic of all was in the corner lot opposite the side of my home that brandon lived on. This fort was a sight to behold. In the clearing, located in the center of the lot, there was a circular trench. About 6ft in diameter and maybe... just maybe 2 feet deep. barely a whole by most standards... but it was Awesome as a fort. Mostly used as a pillbox and lookout. The lot was pretty well wortified by thick trees.. but there were about 10 small trail intrances so alot of ways to attack and run.
The second was a fort that came and went with fall. The pinestraw fort was ever changing in height and thickness but always in the same spot betweent 3 close trees in my backyard. I remember one year i actually drew up the architectural plans for it... which i still have to this day. That fort even had an entrance that you had to crawl into.
The final and most impressive fort was when we started working with 'extra lumber' we found at home construction sites around the area. The tree house was 3 stories high and built off of about 8 pine trees. If memory serves me, I think there was even a tow cable on the 3rd floor for lifting supplies to the top.
So there you have it... I'm tired of typing... and I'm sure anyone that got this far is tired of reading.
I'm sure I lost the focus of this story halfway through... but I can always add and revise later when/if I read over it.
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