My adolescent and teenage years were spent in the Rew Development. When we first moved in, our street didn’t even have a real name—it was just called County Road. No number, no directional suffix, just County Road. It sounds odd now, but that’s how it was. Eventually, someone decided that wasn’t good enough and renamed it President Street, which sounds much more official, even if it didn’t change anything for us kids.
Right across from our house was a wide-open pasture with a
small herd of cows. That field became one of our favorite places to fly kites.
The cows usually stayed out of our way, meandering off to the far side of the
pasture like we were more trouble than we were worth. Most of the time,
anyway. I say that because one day I was cutting through the field on my way to
my best friend’s house when I must’ve done something to offend the herd. Maybe
it was the way I walked, or the sound of my lunchbox, but whatever it was,
those cows suddenly took notice—and then took off after me.
There were maybe eight or ten of them, and when they started
charging, I dropped everything and ran like my life depended on it. And maybe
it did. I barely cleared the fence before they caught up. That little stampede
kept me out of that pasture for quite a while. Eventually the cows were sold
off, and the field became “ours” again. It was filled with broom sedge—some
folks call it broom straw—a tall, rust-colored grass that grew about three feet
high. It was perfect for playing hide and seek. You could drop flat on your
stomach and disappear from sight in an instant. On the rare occasions when it
snowed, that pasture turned into a snowy battlefield, the site of epic snowball
fights that left us soaked, frozen, and grinning like idiots.
In time, the family that owned the land sold it off, and
someone built a log cabin directly across the street from our house. One by
one, more houses went up on that side of the road. For most people, that kind
of development might seem like the end of the fun—but for us kids, it was just
the beginning of a new kind of playground.
We made a daily habit of pestering the construction workers
for scrap wood. Most of the time they were good-natured about it and would toss
us whatever odds and ends they had lying around. We used every board, nail, and
piece of plywood to build treehouses in the woods. When the workers left for
the day, we’d sneak into the unfinished houses to explore. We’d climb through
the rafters, crawl around under the foundations, and scavenge for anything
useful to add to our forts. I swear we knew more about those houses than the
people who eventually moved into them.
When I was in seventh or eighth grade, the Nelms brothers—who
were a few years older than me, built the ultimate treehouse in a big oak tree
right near the Leeds water treatment plant. That’s where the Leeds Memorial
Park is now. Their treehouse was legendary. It sat high in that tree, just off
the road that led to the sewage plant, and we knew it was off-limits. But that
didn’t stop us from sneaking in when they weren’t around.
Me and a couple of my buddies would keep an eye on that
treehouse like it was a military outpost. As soon as the Nelms boys rode off on
their bikes or disappeared for the day, we’d make our move. We weren’t
interested in the treehouse itself—we were after their stash. Swisher Sweet
cigars and Playboy magazines. The holy grail of pre-teen rebellion. We thought
we were living large: puffing on cheap cigars, flipping through glossy pages we
barely understood, and laughing like fools.
One of my buddies even brought a bottle of English Leather
cologne with him every time. After our little smoke session, we’d splash that
stuff on like we were getting ready for a date with Raquel Welch. We genuinely
believed the cologne would mask the smell of cigar smoke. It didn’t. But our
parents never said anything, so either it worked—or they just figured there
were bigger battles to fight.
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