Buildin' Forts

Perhaps it was a legacy of WWII, but when we were kids we played a lot of "army" games in the summer. The Germans were usually the bad guys but, basically, the bad guys were the boys. To protect ourselves we built elaborate "forts" in the woods. A nice large, overhanging bush was a great start. We'd clear out the underbrush and move in the essentials — lawn chairs, cardboard box tables, every little bit of Barbie paraphanalia we had on hand and, if we were lucky, a plastic pitcher of Kool-aid and a supply of Oreos.

Then we'd sit, prepared, for the inevitable attack on our fortress. And, it would come. Sometimes just with loud whoops, other, more lethal times, with sticks and mud balls. We fought back with our own supplies, dishsoap bottle water guns and more mud balls. It's a miracle any of us survived!

War games, of course, were not our only fare. There were elaborate "school" games in my friend Janet's garage. She had a real blackboard and a desk. Of course, if boys played they usually ended up in the corner but they made classes fun (as they did in real life).

Someone's mom must have turned them onto the old Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland flicks on tv or, perhaps it was the reruns of Our Gang we watched over and over, but the "show" was a big theme. We'd hang bedspreads between trees for curtains and feature acts such as Amazing Ann's magic show, a gypsy fortune teller act and really bad renditions of "See You in September" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" played on shuffle-board stick guitars.

Today, as I watch my neighbor's kids being packed off to soccer, softball, swimming, dance, without a spare moment in between for "mischief," I worry that they will never know the intoxicating feeling of endless time and space that was my childhood summer.

—Betty