Brother-pault

About the same time I realized that there was no way for me to live in the medevil ages, I came to the conclution that treeforts would be the next best thing. Luckily for me, at the time we lived on the edge of a forest of over 100 acres, so lumber was plentiful nails were free, (thanks to going to "town" and robbing from the sherrif aka dads tool box.") and labor was available, (the perks of having 4 younger siblings.)


Being the oldest I was privileged to be the decider, I made the choices about what the children would be doing in our land of make believe, construction of the first tree fort began on schedule and for the first few days went by without any issues. We learned many thing about construction. such as, a floor that weighs several hundred pounds should be supported by more than one pine sapling. It will break and you will be repeating a lot of work.

We were ambitious, making not just a platform to stand on, but fashioning railings for safety, constructing a ladder to ascend the trees, and finally one day, we began work on the second story. After finishing the floor for this level, it became apparent to me, that if one were to lean just a little, you could grab hold of a nearby Tulip Poplar tree. and with a little effort this tree could be used to bring supplies to the top of the fort. This effort consisted of the bigger kids bending the tree over and letting the snap back lift stuff into the air... much like a catapult. After using this method 4 or 5 times the poor tree broke, but the idea was cemented in our heads.


A few days later while walking the fence trail, we cam across a similar tree, and as the decider, I decided, that today we needed to test, catapulting siblings.


Weighing over 100 pounds I was not a viable candidates as I could easily bend this tree over with some help from my sisters, who in turn were tried to see if the tree could lift them. To no avail, all proved to be just heavy enough to have gravity conquer. The God sent us a miracle... my youngest sibling, my brother walked upon our experiment.


Ian was quickly told to hold this tree and make sure it didn't go anywhere. Blindly he grasped the tree not fully understanding what was about to happen, we let go of the tree and it snapped back to its former shape, a good 15 feet in the air. Like it was meant to be, my brother went flying in the air, all 15 feet, and when the tree stopped he did not, failing to hold onto the tree Ian was thrown non to gently over the fence, he landed thankfully not in the sticker bushes. but among leafs and soft grass. Just like we had planned.


As amazing as this accomplishment was, we could not talk Ian into repeating his stunt for anything. I believe he may have gone back inside pronto, we couldn't understand why.

Hope today is a good one
austininva