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Build
a tree house. |
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It’s
Saturday morning somewhere in suburbia, some years into
the future: I’m in my backyard wearing
a tattered red flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up past scuffed-up
elbows. An impossibly overstuffed tool belt hangs at my
side. I sip coffee from a thermos and survey the mighty
oak I intend to domesticate. My kids look on with eager
smiles and awe-filled eyes. Cautioning them to stand back
at a safe distance, I begin to ascend the bulky, bark-lined
trunk of this magnificent oak, cargo pants hanging on
precariously to my waist. Hoisting myself up onto its
scaffolding branches, I begin work on the greatest tree
house ever built. My kids whisper in proud reverence,
“My dad is so cool.” Flash
back to the present: I have no kids. I
rent. I have no trees. Given that building a tree house
might be a little less insane if I had any of these,
I might have to give this one a few years. But trust
me about it being the greatest tree house ever built
– if this website is any indication of how perversely
dogged I can be, this little tree house of mine might
just end up having more levels than the Swiss Family
Robinson tree house and more canopy walkways than Ewok
Village.
[August
2002]
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