A Stranger in the Fortress of Solitude (another pointlessly recalled memory.)

When I was a child there was a large woodlot behind our place (I have blogged on it before) One very vivid memory I have about this woodlot was the number of “forts” built in it. For those that do not know a fort is the 1970’s word for a child’s home made club house. We would build these things out of any old scrap lumber tin or trees that happened to be around. The first of the forts were built with tree branches covered with leaves and mud sometimes lean-tos and sometimes dug into the ground. Then there were the forts that were made with cut trees laid in lines like a western stockade you saw on a TV western. The most advanced were those built from stolen lumber from the many construction sites around the neighbourhood. These often looked like woodsheds or shanties some even had heaters made from old tin.

The one that we built, my sisters and I was at the back of our property in the woodlot but just over the property line. Most forts were subject to preditation. Other fort owners would trash your fort but ours had one very good advantage that protected it from predatory brats. Our fort was one of the underground variety and about the only way you could get to it was from our back yard. So in essence our fort was invisible. We dug it into the ground as a square room and covered it with fallen poplars. On top of these we stacked leaves and branches and then a good layer of mud and more leaves. The door was made from old lumber nailed between the poplar rafters at one end and a make shift ladder was added to help you get in and out. We had a earthen bunk at one end to sit on. We used it for months until our granddad got wind of it. I think my sister D actually bragged about it to him, and that was the end of the so called “death trap.” We were forced to dismantle the thing. To be honest I can’t recall if we took it down or he did. It was destroyed by pushing the rafters into the hole and the roof just collapsed in and mud and dirt was tossed in to fill it in.

I had one scary incident involving the fort while it was still in use. One evening when I was particularly depressed I decide to go hang out in the fort alone and read some comics. I headed to the back yard, and as I was walking to the back of the property, I smelled cigarette smoke. I thought my Granddads window was open and this was where the smell was coming from. So I kept walking. Just about half way down the yard I saw the trap door for the fort flip open and a dark figure climbed out. It was obviously not a child or even a teenager because I could see even in the fading light that the person had a beard. I could make out his silhouette and tiny red glow of a cigarette in his hand which he flicked into the bush. He glanced to wards me and walked off into the bush.

I ducked down and waited until he was gone I don’t know if he saw me or not, but from then on I would always make noises as I went to the fort as to not surprise any sleeping vagrants. I told one of my sisters (which one I can’t remember) about it and they wouldn’t believe me. However it was within a month that Granddad ordered the fort destroyed. Thus disposing of my fortress of solitude.