My First Treehouse

I was eight years old and on a massive Calvin and Hobbes bender. Calvin had a Radio Flyer; I wanted a Radio Flyer. Calvin had an old-timey wooden sled; I wanted an old-timey wooden sled. Calvin had a treehouse; and I HAD to have a treehouse. A treehouse!
Every weekend that summer I begged my dad to build one, but he always had to go to the hardware store or the paint store or trim the hedges or mow the lawn or perform some other such hideously tedious chore. Man, he really dragged his feet. But finally I broke him, and he began working on the treehouse. I got really excited when I saw that the wooden pegs had been nailed into the trunk, and even more excited when the wooden platform floor was successfully installed. But then he stopped building. The ensuing conversation went something like this:
"Hey Dad, why'd you stop building?"
"That's it. That's your treehouse."
"What? What about the walls? And a door? No windows or even a peephole for me to look through"
"Nope," he gestured to the tree with a hammer in his hand. That's all you get. Have fun!"
I wanted to yell, "But Dad, you're an architect for Christ's sake. You're an embarrassment to your craft!

Instead, I just  looked up at the pieces of plywood halfheartedly nailed into the crotch of the tree and made my way up the ladder and onto the platform. I moved one step and felt my eight-year old body give slightly under the weight of the boards. I stood there, staring out onto the lawn below and at the tree branches above me. "No walls!", I sighed to myself. With no walls, there would be no scheming, no conspiring against my little brother and his annoying little friends, no rudimentary weapon making, no reading Encyclopedia Brown or listening to Huey Lewis and the News on my Walkman in peace. There was barely any room for one more person to sit and dream up dastardly plans with and very little chance that the platform could withstand the weight of two kids.

I thought of Calvin and his treehouse: the treehouse that to me symbolized the embodiment of childhood, a room of one's own and a place to get away. My dad's treehouse went uninhabited by all. Squirrels thumbed their noses at this one and retreated to their higher, more structurally sound domiciles. Despite the occasional use as a latrine by an opossum or raccoon, it was deemed condemned after the following winter.

What a shitty treehouse.

Some 24 years later, I still long for a treehouse, a place to huddle up with your friends and talk shit. Thankfully, many of our interests have progressed somewhat (and some not so much), and so this blog will act as a repository for tracking such activities as cooking, baking, beer brewing, music, travel, writing, photography, bar and restaurant sleuthing, and other such attractions and curiosities and adventures that come our way.