Tree House

chokecherry tree clump

Across the road from where I lived, there was a clump of chokecherry trees, not unlike the ones in the photo above. The difference, however, was that these trees were younger and much more plentiful, and had grown in a circle about 15 feet in diameter. Each tree had grown straight up, had no branches until it reached the top, where it then branched and leafed out during the Spring and Summer months.

A perfect tree house!  My tree house!

The white dot represents where my tree house was...

Somehow, in the way that the trees grew...it was like a ring of trees in the center and then an outer ring...giving way to about a 2 foot walkway in-between...and the center of the clump of trees was barren as well. The only modifications I had made were to make 'doorways' into both rings...thus I had my 'tree house'!

Even as a child, I had a vivid imagination (obviously!) and I had made certain areas (mentally) into different rooms of my house...the very center being the bathroom! I would take various toys with me across the road, across the ditch...little plastic tea cups and saucers, a tea pot, little aluminum pots and cake pans, my barbies and other dolls...and spend hours and hours playing in that clump of trees.

I'd sit on the ground in that outer ring sometimes, the Summer breeze rustling the leaves overhead while I scraped up dirt to pretend I was making a cake, or serving a meal on my little saucers...adding a bit of water that I had brought from the house or scooped from the ditch (after a recent rain)...or sometimes I would have my Barbies go swimming in the ditch. I occupied myself well as my brother was a baby and my sister hadn't been born yet.

Once in a while, I would have a cousin stop by, and I was very reluctant to take her to my tree house...I didn't like sharing my private place, even as a child of 8 or 9. I supposed even then I liked and needed a private space for some alone time.

I haven't thought about that tree house in a long, long time...and thinking of it now brings back some good memories...of a time when life was so simple.