When I was about 12 years old, the new hockey rink in town was being finished. It took several years, and while it was under construction there was a lot of junk wood lying around that anyone could take. I was amazed by how much mostly good wood there was and anyone with half a brain could build all kinds of cool stuff.
Me and my friend David Skewes figured we’d ask our parents if we could get some and build a tree fort. They said it was fine and we went over there and got a lot of amazing wood that was perfectly good for building a tree fort.
We picked a location with the perfect tree in the back of David’s house. It was perfect because it had all the right elements, like the right location with the right branches. We asked David’s mom if she would bring her station wagon to the hockey arena place with all the free wood and she did and we loaded it up, right in broad daylight. It wasn’t stealing because it was junk wood. There weren’t any signs that said “Don’t Take,” and no one stopped us, so we figured it was just there for anyone who wanted it. It was a pure goldmine and David and I couldn’t believe how lucky we were. David was one of my good friends– for a summer, that is. It seemed in those days I’d have a best friend for a while and then in about six months I’d either wear them out or they’d bug me and I’d move on. Every year I had a new best friend. I wonder why it was like that. I guess my best friends were seasonal. I suppose I had some long-term friends, so it wasn’t like I was a total loser with the friendship thing.
David had a bunch of older siblings and they all turned him onto the cool music of the time. They all had records of bands like Peter Frampton: Comes Alive, Wings: Band On The Run, and stuff like that. We used to sit on the floor in the living room and listen to the albums over and over again, just amazed by how good they were. I still remember lying on his living room ruglistening to Blue Bird by Paul McCartney and Wings…
Anyway, we built a tree house and it was really nice. It was about ten feet high and had a rope ladder hanging down.
David and me used to have BB gun fights in his back yard. One of us would have the gun, and the other would have a metal snow saucer as a shield and we’d basically just try and kill the other guy way across the yard and the other guy would hide his face and torso behind the snow saucer. You could hear the klink klink sound of the BB’s hitting the saucer and the occasional “OW!” when a BB would hit someone’s arm or leg. I’m surprised we never got one in the eye or got in trouble with his mom. Maybe we timed it so that no one was around when we did that stuff. That summer was a blast. Once the tree fort was up, we probably played in that thing for about ten minutes and then got bored. It wasn’t about hanging out in the treefort; it was about building it. That was the fun part. Once it was up, it was just a stupid tree fort and lost its appeal in about two seconds.
David used to say dumb stuff like, “Hey, you have a pie cost on your shoulder.”
I’d say, “What’s a pie cost?” and he’d say, “About a dollar fifty,” and then laugh and laugh and laugh.
Then he’d say, “Hey, Cliff, you have a hen way on your arm.”
I’d say, “What’s a hen way?” and he’d say, “About five pounds,” and laugh and laugh. He thought that was pretty clever and so did I, for a while that is. David had an older sister in high school that was pretty hot. She knew I was a musician and would flirt with me some. Of course I would flirt right back. I didn’t care if she was five years older than me. She was hot.
He also had an older brother, Johnny, who was into drugs, and in trouble. We NEVER would be like that when we got older, we would tell Mrs. Skewes.
Once in a while, Johnny would show up, but he was mostly “out.” When I did see him on his occasional appearances he seemed like a nice guy and a normal enough person. In fact, he was just fine. Mrs. Skewes was the one that wasn’t all that fine. She was nice and all, but she was always suspicious of people and just waiting for them to mess up because she basically believed that people eventually let you down. Or, that’s what it seemed like to me. Or, maybe I was just learning how to be paranoid and she just happened to be there during that period of my life. I guess I’ll never know for sure which came first, the paranoia or Mrs. Skewes being suspicious.
Mr. Skewes was mostly a normal, straight-laced kind of guy. He probably drank alcohol more than the average person, but in my town, everyone drank more than the average person, so even though most people were alcoholics, it SEEMED like it was normal.
I had read somewhere that Dartmouth College had the highest alcohol consumption per capita in the entire United States. Every year, someone in one of the frats would die of alcohol poisoning.
I knew some guys up there and they told mehow they’d flood the basement with seven kegs and make the freshmen do alligator slides. They had to run and slide in the beer and drink until they threw up over and over again and then passed out. The older Dartmouth students would stand around dressed in plastic garbage bags, taking notes with a clipboard, making sure the new freshmen guys could aim their puke with deadly accuracy into a big garbage can.
I guess if you’re going to be an alcoholic as a profession, you might as well get good at throwing up and aiming it in a garbage can so you keep the mess to a minimum.