Nostalgia building a "Fort"

I grew up in a tract home outside San Francisco.  We lived at the bottom of a very steep hill.  A gigantic steep wild backyard complete with yearly washout of the ancient dune soil that started out with out a stalk of vegetation was common. As a "kid" community we had many friends from all over the community. Most of them came from working/ lower middle class families.  We were safe and our families had no fear that we would head into the wrong direction with our choices of friends or their activities. Out only admonishment was be home before the streetlights came on.

At eight years old we had such a chance to explore and and have fun with our neighbors and friends that we brought into the neighborhood.  At dusk we played street softball with whipple balls that had huge holes in them so that they would not go very far.  We played hide and seek among the parked cars (very few cars every drove down our block because it was so steep and most people without business in one of the houses didn't want to challenge their brakes or their sanity).

Almost all the houses on the block were were occupied by people that owned the homes. Many were bought with VA loans and many of the occupants were the same age range of my "Greatest Generation" parents. We were the boomer kids.  We didn't know it then or even knew that we were the biggest spike in population growth that the country had known for generations.  Business was booming. Houses could not be erected fast enough and certainly schools and school buildings had to constructed quickly to accommodate us.

We had a great time growing up in this community.  My friends and I had ongoing floating monopoly games within a quarter mile radius that introduced us to all kinds of kids with all kinds of families. A few families were a little richer than others.  I think that sad to say, they were richer in wealth because they had fewer kids to raise.  Those that brought more kids into the family had a tougher time in government or wage stabilized environments.

A family moved in eight houses away from us on our little street.  They were family that was Dutch. They had only one daughter.  Their house was neat as a pin.  They were so happy to have this daughter.  They want to give her everything that she wanted. She was not a thin girl and had a bobbed haircut. What she wanted has was to build a gigantic fort. A fort in a kids mind was ultimate realization of  independence in their world. A place to be home, their home and not have to deal with the vagaries of home ownership. To this end her father found a way to bring left over pieces of wood of all sorts to the backyard. He may have been a carpenter or maybe just a construction site scavenger. As kids we never asked where we were just happy to have them. As neighborhood kids we looked at this project as a great adventure.  If she liked you, you could help her build. Nails and hammers were provided and buckets of bright latex blue paint.  Oh my.

No planning, no quality control, just get out their and build with the wood and nails and paint.  Did it ever become a viable clubhouse... well no.  Was she or us ever happy with the results? No not really.  Did we have fun building... oh yeah.

Our community was a transitional community.  Maybe all of them were in that era.  Dad's got better jobs and moved to bigger homes or to somewhere the weather was better.  Her family moved out within a year and a family from Fuji moved in.I always wondered what became of the "fort" when they people moved in.

I was reminded of this world this week when I was making raised beds for my tomatoes and vegetables.  I made 3 raised containers 12 inches deep. They are 8 feet long and 4 feet wide.  I used number 10 screws that were 3 inches long to secure the ends to the lengths.  Grabbing up the wood and attaching the screws brought me back to the 50's era fort construction site and the kid that had unlimited wood, nails and blue paint.  : ) Pat