What is it about boys that like to build forts?
It has to do with the childhood imagination. The forts were gateways to the world of Sir Lancelot, Robin Hood, Sinbad, Errol Flynn, Peter Pan, Tarzan, Marco Pole, Hopalong Cassidy, Elliot Ness, and our heroic fathers.
There is also something about the restless energy of children. Young children seem to be perpetual motion machines. Building something… anything…became natural to my childhood.
I have two brothers, Malone, and Stephen. In the 1950s and early 1960s we all had forts. My oldest brother Malone and my Dad built a green, plywood “shack” in a field in back of our house on Wiley Avenue in a vacant field that was to become the home of the “Wiley Wildcats” baseball team.
My brother Stephen, with help from my Dad, built “The Platform” on a hill in the same field that would form the home base of many childhood adventures.
For me, it was building, burrowing, and scavenging. Anything would do: old boxes, scraps of lumber, bricks, concrete blocks, even DIRT. Improvise? You bet. Any scrap of rope or cable or old hose could become a swing, zip-line, or pretend telephone.
Hammers and nails were like material manna. With a little work one could create a ladder up a big pine tree to climb to mother-frightening heights.
What boy does not want a treehouse? Is there one? Long hours could be spent climbing a huge oak, a small mimosa, or a stately elm.
And what about a great rope swing with a tire or simple knot on the bottom, especially if it was over a descending hill or a water hole?
One of my first forts was a discarded box about 4x4x6 that had contained an oil furnace from my Dad’s business. I filled it with blankets and toys and spent hours dreaming and planning new adventures. Is there a big box that a child doesn’t love? I think not.
Another time, we built a fort of concrete blocks atop “The Platform.” Girls came along and hung curtains and wallpaper and generally made the place less welcoming.
Perhaps my favorite fort was underground. With my brother’s help, my friends and I dug a large hole in the field, about 7x7x4 feet. We somehow found some plywood – don’t ask – topped it off and spread brush over the top to hide it! We then burrowed out and built long hidden entrance tunnels and side rooms for all the members of the “gang.” It was heaven itself.
Neighboring boy “gangs” demolished it more than once and this became the aggression that turned into the great Brainerd Boy War.
My Dad, Harry Daugherty, understood boys. Once for a birthday he gave me four pieces of 4x8 treated plywood and two old saw horses! Can you imagine all the fun I had building with that material? On top of the structure, I could hurl bombs at savage hordes, or S.O.S. messages to passing sailing ships.
And this kind of thing does not end.
On Sundays, my Mom and Dad would take me as they drove through town looking at new construction. I loved it! 2x4 studs lined up like soldiers invited me in to explore and discover.
As I grew into young manhood, there was always a cabin on the lake, a cave in the mountains, a tent, a log old cabin in some field or an abandoned store down an old country road. In college I owned a Volvo station wagon just so I could carry a fly rod and sleep in it near a stream or brook.
Later, when I had married and was raising my own six children with my most excellent wife Sally, I was possessed by the same building urge. One son, Douglas, loved to build things. We built something of a dream fort. It was three stories high with a plexiglass roof and a dumb waiter that I could never make work.
Young boys and their Dads are imaginative builders, a pair made in heaven. It all started in the Golden Age of Brainerd years ago.
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