When I was growing up, we had this huge maple tree in our backyard. Before the age of eleven I really wasn't so interested in anything to do with tree, primarily because I wasn't tall enough to reach the branches that allowed me to pull myself up and climb up into the tree. But there was something magical about the summer of 1972...I was finally able to climb the tree like Robinson Crusoe and I discovered girls for the first time thanks to that maple tree.Once I began to ascend the branches it didn't take long to realize that I could see over most of the one level homes that peppered the Mapleside landscape of South Cumberland. The tree and its branches were thick, and in the summertime, they allowed me to hide behind the thousands of green leaves as I took perch high above the neighborhood. I played in that tree from morning until "the street lights came on." The universal time in Cumberland when all kids had to be home.
One evening as darkness fell upon the Queen City, I was high above, in my tree tower, surveying my new kingdom when a light came on in the back bedroom of the house next to ours. Glancing quickly toward the light I noticed that I could see the dresser mirror in the room that exposed a view of the entire room. From that mirror mirror on the wall, I noticed that the older teenage girl next door was...well...getting ready to change into her...aaaa...pajama's. Suddenly, I was temporarily paralyzed...I couldn't move. I didn't want to look but my eyes were unable to blink and I began to sweat from the palms of my hands. I felt as if I was transposed into a parallel universe. After a few minutes, the neighbors transformation complete, the light went off and I was returned to my regular programming. But I was forever changed.
That summer, my cousins and I built a tree fort in that maple tree with some scrap lumber. That fort became my second home. I painted it some god-awful yellow color with some old paint that I found in the basement. I found some blue paint and painted "Keep Out" and "No Girls Allowed" on the outside. It was in that fort that some of the 'older' boys would bring their dad's magazines and we'd...well...look at them. But I had one rule...everyone had to out of the fort once it started to get dark or before the "neighbors light came on." That was my little secret until today.
I don't see many tree forts anymore. I guess kids aren't interested in playing outside and what-the-heck, they can get their fantasies fulfilled from video games or the Internet now. But for me, that summer of 1972 marked a change in my life. A time when innocence was lost and I was set on a collision course with becoming a teenager.
