Treehouses I have known

As a kid, I lived on the edge of San Antonio. We had deer wandering in our backyard. We had oak trees that were probably older than the United States. Today, however, that area is surrounded by industry and cement...but I remember it when...

I recall the treehouse behind my next door neighbor's house. Simple enough and built about eight feet off the ground where four oak trees huddled together, it was our meeting place. We made plans there to build ground level forts from discarded pieces of houses that were under construction nearby. We wrote plays (believe it or not) which always had to end with a pie in the face. (We were Laurel and Hardy fans, too) Many truths were told up in the treehouse, many tears were shed, many unjustices revealed and triumphal battles as well. It was wonderful. A couple hundred feet away from the main house, we lived like pirates, or cowboys or just scavengers making the best of dirt and rocks.

My most memorable moment in the treehouse came on afternoon as things wemt along as they normally do, when sweet Patty gave me a serious look and firmly said, "Don't move." I glanced around in just enough time to see her swinging a two-by-four toward my head. The board went down painfully on my shoulder and the wasp that had perched there flew up and stung me on the neck. So in addition to a wasp sting, my shoulder hurt like the dickens.

We got years of laughter out of telling that story, about how she was trying to protect me from injury and pretty much maximized it instead. But that was how our friendship evolved. A series of trips and falls and runs and errors. But it was solid through and through. Even though we never really stayed in contact much after college.

When my mom died, after my dad died some ten years before, Patty walked through the funeral line