Introduction - Being Cool & Building Forts
When I was a kid I thought it kind of cool that we lived on a road that shared the same name as my mom. It was 1969 when my family moved to Janice Drive in College Park, Georgia. Looking back, it is crystal clear how a single decision made by my parents set in motion a certain trajectory for my life. There are so many environmental, social, political and cultural influences that contribute to who we ultimately become, and this process is ongoing throughout life, however, the formative years as a child can have tremendous influence as we learn how to navigate this beautiful thing called life.
I have had in the back of my mind the notion to one day share my adventures as a kid growing up in the South during the 1970's. I even considered writing a book, but lacked the confidence that anyone would even care to read about my life and the endless stories that were made each day as I awoke in my suburban neighborhood just south of Atlanta. I am writing this series to reflect on my "Wonder Years", and just maybe some of you will enjoy my journey and life experiences that I plan to share in future blogs. Younger readers may even be taken back a bit by the freedom we enjoyed and the dangers we encountered at a very young age. You may also enjoy taking away some life lessons, and at the very least, my own children may be able to catch a glimpse of what their dad was like as a scrappy little kid.
One of my first memories of our move from Cleveland, Ohio was when I got out of our car to eat at McDonalds somewhere in Tennessee. It was September and as I stepped out of that car the heat hit me like a blow dryer. It was spectacular! Being a rather skinny kid, I was always cold. The heat was, and still is, my friend even though I'm not so skinny anymore. We were moving south where it was substantially warmer and that was good news to me. When I was a young child I didn't worry too much about anything as long as I was with my parents. I trusted them with a child's innocence and I just tried to find loads of fun along the way, so I don't ever recall being sad, or anxious about the move. I can't speak for my older sister, Sheryl, about her emotions about leaving Ohio, but I know she's a bit more cautious and sentimental than myself. We rented a home for a short time until my parents found a house they wanted to purchase. That permanent home was located on Janice Drive. The great thing about this house was that we had vacant wooded lots on each side making the spot super appealing for a little boy poised for adventure.
Cool Is King
It didn't take long to make friends with most of the neighborhood kids. Our neighborhood was kind of middle class with my family on the lower end of that economic spectrum. Across the wooded lot to our right lived the McBrayers. Mike McBrayer was older than me by two years and was the first person to greet us as the moving trucks arrived. Over time, we had worn down a trail through that lot that connected our homes. Mike was always working a calculating angle, and this time he was curious to find out if his life was about to become more fun by having these new neighbors. Well, he hit the jackpot with me. Mike quickly became my best bud and he plays a primary role in many of my stories. He also gets much of the credit for making me a bit tougher than the average bear. He was older and I had to keep up. This recipe for childhood development was sometimes dicy and often led to trips to the ER for stitches. Mike had an older brother, Greg, who was a bit more cautious than his little brother and definitely not as cool... and as I soon came to understand, "cool was king". Even as an eight year old kid, Mike had swagger. He looked cool, dressed cool, talked cool, acted cool and set the bar for cool in my little part of the world. Cool is always accompanied by athleticism. Mike could ride wheelies on his bike, he could run fast, he could play any kind of sport, he could ride a skateboard, he had musical talent and was basically good at whatever he tried, and I became his apprentice.
Girls still had cooties and my life was centered around having the most fun possible with the boys in the neighborhood. Every single day ushered in a brand new adventure, and school was an annoying inconvenience. Summers were the best! Long days, warm nights and NO SCHOOL! For a subdivision, we had some great resources that included wooded lots, steep hills and several creeks. One of the first projects that I remember working on was the construction of a fort. What boy doesn't want a fort to hide inside and strategize, to have a place of protection from possible invaders and somewhere to imprison the captured enemy? Janice Drive ran parallel with three other streets and sat on the interior of them. There was a bond, a loyalty to the kids that lived on your own street. This often turned into full blown turf wars that ultimately resulted in BB gun battles as we got older. (I'll expand on these exciting confrontations in future posts.) I was only 6 years old when I learned the value of a quality fort. Our first fort project was a ground fort made of cut pine saps, but we later learned that elevated forts built in the trees offered tremendous advantages. We stripped the branches from the long, thin trunks and stacked them in a teepee style. We found some twine in my dads garage and tied them together at the top. We then used the cut pine branches to cover the teepee like a skin. Of course we left a small entrance to crawl through. We were so proud of that fort that we had cut out of the surrounding woods. Greg had an aptitude toward engineering and he took the lead over that particular project. Mike and I were the hard labor. The project took all day and at one moment a kid who lived down the road happened by to see what we were doing. Mike made it very clear to Jeff that this was a top secret project, and that if he wanted to live, he wouldn't say a word to anyone. Jeff was a scrawny, fragile kid and small for his age. He was also in the same grade as Mike and was terrified of Mike's earned reputation as bonafide bad ass. We were quite confident that our secret project was safe with Jeff.
When I went home that evening my dad asked me where I had been and what I had been doing all day? Staring into my food I replied, "just playing with Mike and Greg". Dad pressed a little more. "Where were you all day playing with Mike and Greg? Just building a fort," I replied. "Well, maybe you can show me what you've done tomorrow? What was I going to do? I didn't want to give away the location to our secret fort, but I was only six and this is my dad we are talking about. The next morning dad and I walked through the woods behind our house and arrived at the site of our fort. I wanted to warn Mike and Greg that I was in a tight with my dad and that I couldn't get out of revealing the fort location. To my surprise, my dad was actually excited about what we had accomplished. He couldn't say enough about what an excellent fort we had built. He then told me to go get Mike and Greg because there was one major flaw. I ran to the McBrayer house and told them to follow me back to the fort and that my dad loved it, but that there was something wrong with it. When we returned, my dad was sitting on a stump whittling some pine branches into sharp spears. He smiled and said, "boys, this fort is outstanding, but it needs fortified." And that was the day we all learned how to whittle and make punji sticks. I kid you not. We had that fort surrounded by piercing spears propped on crosshatched supports by the end of the day. That fort was definitely fortified! And that was also the day that Mike and Greg found out that Gary Gray was the coolest parent on Janice Drive.