The Hideout

10/21/2015

The Lay of the Land

By Lyn Messersmith

The Hideout

            One of my granddaughters lives in a tree. It’s a mid-sized flowering crab next to the bunkhouse with foliage not thick enough to hide in very well. Whenever she’s missing we know where to look, and sometimes when no one has missed her yet a comment comes out of the blue and causes us to look up and locate a bare foot dangling among the branches. I don’t know about you, but I like to have at least a clue about the location of someone with whom I’m conversing.

            About that bare foot—this is the child who runs across a driveway covered with six inches of snow to have breakfast at Grandma’s, never bothering with shoes. So why would she put on shoes to climb a tree?

            The youngster has her tree house well planned, although there’s not a board or nail in sight. A certain branch is the living room, over here is kitchen, and the flat limb that stretches out more or less horizontally is the bedroom of course. Sometimes she invites a brother in, but they’ve sort of given up tree climbing in favor of rooftops and football, so generally her companions, if any, are stuffed animals, books, and sometimes a blanket or balloon.

            The kid reminds me of me. Once upon a time, longer ago than I’m going to tell, an ash tree of about that same height grew at the edge of the yard where this grandchild and her family now live, and I took up residence in it’s branches for several summers. With foliage dense, I could, and did, hide in there sometimes, when my mother called for me. That tree also had areas designated as rooms, but it was too tight quarters to take toys and such up with me. I didn’t play much with toys anyway, and my dog and horse wouldn’t fit, so I kept a stash of treasures there, tied in an old scarf. I don’t recall what all; probably some pretty rocks and leaves, a favorite marble, a whistle, and a few cottonwood twigs broken at the star joint. A snakeskin, I remember for sure; a fancy button, and a yellow feather.

            I had a fort in the woodpile, a hideout in the grain bin in the hayloft, and another on top of the chicken house. Those were shared with playmates and visiting cousins, but I never invited anyone else to my tree. When neighbors came to visit of an evening, we kids walked the meadow, sat in the hayloft hanging our feet out the door and sang to the moon, or took turns walking the top rail of the corral fence. But I never took them to the hilltop where I went most summer evenings, as a teenager, to watch the sunset.

I’m sad for youngsters who have a television set and computer in their rooms, along with every imaginable toy and gadget. Parents ought not to deprive young folks of a chance to pretend. It’s always more fun making it up as you go along than having things planned out for you. That’s why a toddler discards the new toy and plays with the box it came in.

Back in the old days, neighbor kids and I ventured to a blowout, or junk pile, where we gathered scraps of this and that and created play houses for ourselves, arranged communities, and roads; a whole world, just as we wanted it to be. We gave ourselves different names, and pretended to work at various occupations, but what we really were doing was practicing for adulthood.

Do kids nowadays play house, school, store, cowboy, and policeman? Have we filled their heads with superheroes and fantasy characters, while discouraging any tendency to copy realistic roles in their play? In classroom settings, they are encouraged to work in groups; a useful skill, but where is the opportunity to develop imagination, creativity, and self-direction?

Perhaps the world would be a saner and safer place if, as kids, we all had a tree where no one else was allowed. Even a nook behind the couch would do; a hole under the porch, clearing in the grove, a blowout, or back yard swing. So if you missed out back then, find a way to make it happen now. We need to know ourselves in a way that only comes with prolonged solitude. Hiding out, you might say, in preparation to branch out later on.