Column: Tales From Exit 22

We weren’t halfway to anywhere.

We were getting bigger and our grandparents were becoming smaller.

We didn’t pencil in anything or anyone. Life was on a leash. Our schedules were not of our own making. They were determined by various grownups. That’s why we needed the tree house.

It wasn’t just in a tree. It was in a tree that was in the woods.

We didn’t go into the construction of such an important inner sanctum without thought. We had board meetings. Then we obtained boards. They were used, abused, and crooked. We spent board meetings nailing the boards in place with rusty and bent nails.

We held important meetings in our uneven but poorly built castle. We considered it a think tank. That’s what we thought.

Scooter would say things like, “There is a pill that you can drop into the gas tank of a car and you’ll get over 200 miles per gallon. The oil companies are trying to make it illegal. They say it doesn’t work. That’s what they want us to believe.”

We had scoffers in the group. Guys who didn’t even believe what they themselves said. “Where did you hear that?” more than one of them asked.

Scooter fired back with his favorite scoff depressant, “My Uncle R told me.”

What did his Uncle R know? He couldn’t even spell his name. That’s why he was Uncle R.

“Who would win in a fight?” said Weasel, introducing one of our favorite diversions while expertly changing the subject. “Superman with one hand tied behind his back or the entire Green Bay Packers team?”

That always made me put down my Batman comic book. Some fellows said that Superman would win because, well, he was Superman. Most of them added a “duh” to their answers. The other half of our group said that the Packers would win because there was no Superman. They, considering themselves the intellectual arm of those in the tree house, refrained from adding “duh.”

We didn’t agree on much, but we agreed that we needed to be doing something. We thought about going into business. My father was always asking us what kind of monkey business we were up to now.

We turned the tree house into a branch office. That was easy. What was difficult was finding a business. Apparently, we weren’t up to anything other than monkey business. We turned the branch office into a clubhouse.

We didn’t agree on much, but we needed a name for the club. We decided on “The Club.” There wasn’t any steering wheel lock anti-theft device by that name in those thrilling days of yesteryear. We came up with a secret handshake that we were unable to do without giggling. So we incorporated giggling as a required part of the secret handshake.

The Club needed rules. Rules were hard. Part of the reason we came to the tree house was to escape rules. We didn’t agree on much but we decided by unanimous vote that we would have but one rule—there would be no girls allowed. We liked girls better than we liked the Yankees, but not by much.

Not only would girls not be permitted to join The Club, they would be prohibited from entering the clubhouse. We were glad that our mothers were not nor had they ever been girls.

No girls allowed. That condition wasn’t going to be a problem. There weren’t that many girls eager to hang with us.

We didn’t agree on much, but we agreed that it was a fine thing to be freed of the oppressive bossiness of tattling girls.

We put a “No girls” sign on the clubhous — both words spelled correctly. We were about to drink a toast to the good life. We filled chipped coffee cups with lukewarm nectar (red) poured from a battered Stanley thermos. That’s when we heard it. It was the roar of a hungry chainsaw.

We looked down from our lofty perch to see Wanda holding a chainsaw.

Wanda was a tomboy, a great shortstop, and an even greater pain in the rear. She never cried except at her mother’s weddings. She had an attitude. Each time she hit a home run, she said, “There aren’t any king bees.”

Wanda looked up at us and yelled, “Take down the sign or else!”

“Or else what?” I hollered back, pleased with my clever repartee.

“Or you come down,” replied Wanda as she revved the saw’s engine and moved towards our tree.

We took down the sign and opened The Club membership to girls with chainsaws.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.