Dink chose the tree for our construction project. He chose it several weeks ago when he regained consciousness lying flat on his back looking up at it. In his delirium from being hurled about forty feet by the explosion, our failed attempt at destroying our bomb shelter clubhouse, he stated then, "we have got to build us a tree house up there."
Construction planning would be very simple—make it up as we go. The size would be based on two things only: the length of support materials would determine the floor and our own height would determine the height of the walls. Dink was the tallest, so we'd use his height.
Anything that could be held together with nails, wire or bailing twine would have to do for building materials. Local building sites would supply the nails and some lumber. The dumps behind some of the businesses in town would be primary sources for plastic and cardboard. We always got our binders twine at the Robinson's Lumber Company and would do so now, but would take nothing else unless absolutely necessary.
It was time to start construction.
Dink was a hard taskmaster! He showed up at my house each morning well before I was ready to get out of bed. He didn't wake me gently but by poking and prodding and telling me how fat and lazy I was getting. How I needed the exercise. Really it was all about Dink needing his primary laborer and second-in-command on hand.
Most of the actual construction took place during the day while light was available. The hours were long and hard. The goal was completion as soon as possible so we really stayed after it. It was a little dangerous getting the floor down, but after that the work went fast. We were out very little money. I really don't believe we were out any money-but we did borrow materials heavily! Dink and I supplied ALL the labor.
After we finished putting the tree house together, we spent almost every waking moment in it. We spent many nights there, too, just talking and planning how to improve our place. We also discussed what raids on the other clubs might gain us. Some "others" were originally members, but those memberships were cancelled! The guys were permitted to see the inside of our club house and even spend a night once in a while, but no permanent memberships were granted. It would have taken something really extraordinary for anyone to be reinstated.
As well as those wanting to enjoy our tree house there were those who would have liked nothing better than to tear it down. Their motive? Jealousy, and just a general dislike of Dink and me. We were very aware of this and stayed close as much as possible. Some adults living within sight of the tree house-though not too keen on having their scenic view blocked by such a big thing without any well-defined shape-helped us by warning kids they didn't recognize to move along.
Actual entry into the tree house was through a trap door in the bottom. We kept it padlocked. Since Dink provided the padlock, only Dink had a key. It wasn't that he distrusted me, but he distrusted me and everybody else!
Our best defense was the location of the tree house-thirty-plus feet with no tree branches below it. The main weapons in our arsenal were bags of soil samples (very dry powdery dirt in little brown bags, thrown out by the conservation people) and discarded florescent light bulbs. The idea was not to injure but still to make it very challenging and a little too nasty to attempt to take our position by force. Of course, more serious stuff was arranged for quick access if needed.
The first and only defense of the tree house was not the result of another club attempting to raid it, but the result of Dink and I (mostly Dink) provoking some of the smart-ass older boys who looked down on us anyway. This is what happened: We were crossing a street and when the older boys drove by, Dink reached out and slapped their car. The chase was on! We were clear on the other side of town, the south side, eight or ten blocks from any semblance of safety. We had no choice but to run and running away from somebody in a car means you don't run down the street. We headed diagonally across yards in the direction of our tree house. It meant ducking clothes lines and jumping septic pools and burning pits along the way, not to mention outrunning dogs and ignoring some of the words sent our direction by home owners. It seemed we had no more got started when I looked back and Dink was nowhere to be seen. I thought what the hell had happened to Dink? No more had these thoughts entered my mind when I saw Dink pulling himself up out of a concrete burning pit—probably the only concrete one in town! He was only a little shook up but not bad enough to hang around to get caught.
We cut down through the ditch, got wet doing so, but made it to the tree house. We knew we had been recognized. We also figured every boy in town knew of our clubhouse and where it was located. Feeling we were a long way from being safe, we prepared for the pending assault. We didn't have to wait long. Dink and I had no more moved our dirt bags near the entry opening when the assholes who were chasing us arrived and began throwing rocks and obscenities our way.
Its true words won't hurt you, but they will piss you off and fire you up. The sticks and stones definitely cause injury. We returned the bad words and maybe did them one better. Dink and I could cuss with the best of 'em! We saved our bags of dirt until one of the gutsier boys decided to try the ladder. Dink and I both let dirt bags fly. It was funnier than hell! The boys down below had no idea what was in the bags. They only knew that the bags burst and a fine, brown, powdery substance got into their eyes and noses. I think they thought we were using something really bad, maybe mustard gas. All of us had heard of mustard gas from our WWI grandpas, so it was a likely suspect.
Their ringleader, a smarter and braver guy than his cohorts, charged through the poisonous dirt for the ladder. You don't run up a ladder that consists of boards nailed to a tree. You have to pull yourself up one rung at a time, a slow and tough process. This guy's name was Jack and he had only made a couple of rungs when Dink headed for the heavy artillery--the four-foot florescent light bulbs! He grabbed one and moved right to the entry opening and threw it as hard as he could right at Jack's head. If you have ever thrown one of these long glass tubes you know how they react. If you haven't done it, it goes like this: they are very thin gas-filled glass tubes that only have significant weight at each end, the plugs. If you toss them gently they will fly fairly straight like a spear. But if you really load up and throw them hard, they will switch ends. The one Dink threw switched ends just in time to catch Jack right in the middle of the top of his head with the center of the tube. I don't know which was louder, the tube exploding or Jack hollering. The glass and white powder flew everywhere. Jack had the stuff all over his head and shoulders but he hadn't seen what actually caused it. I guess he thought he was shot. Anyway, his feet hit the ground running and his buddies were hot on his heels. I thought he was crying. The way the nasty words and threats of what his daddy would do to us sounded, he must have been crying! Dink and I were out numbered two to one but we won the battle. It all ended right there,when Dink used our ultimate defensive weapon, a spent florescent light bulb.
The tree house lasted only the one summer and into fall and early winter. After it really got cold, there was no way to keep from freezing thirty feet up in a tree in a single-walled structure that you didn't need windows in because you could see well enough between the cracks. We didn't have to dismantle it; Mother Nature took care of that for us. We did have to pick up and sadly dispose of its remains. It made one hell of a fine fire and allowed us to reclaim the borrowed nails.
Dink and I were not getting any younger and started thinking it was time to expand our horizons. It was time to explore new territory. Time to see what lay south of town along Crowley's Ridge toward Dexter. There were a lot of woods and we had been told several Indian mounds were down that way and a real Sioux Indian actually owned them!

But that will be another adventure.

Michael I. Hobbs lives in Dexter, Missouri, and is completing a collection of essays. His "The Bomb Shelter: A Mike and Dick Adventure appeared in Sweetgum Notes Vol.1.1. (See Authors, this site.)

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