Jon’s dad wasn’t home at the moment and his mom didn’t seem to care what happened to that wood so we were good to go.

With an abundance of wood, we could build the coolest fort the neighborhood had ever seen.  I’d built a couple of tree forts prior to this, but those were merely boards between a couple of branches up high to sit on.  This was going to be an impressive structure.

We couldn’t be bothered with architecting anything for this endeavor, we were in too much of a hurry to have a fort.  I made a quick trip home and returned with a handsaw, hammer, and some nails and before you knew it we were on our way.

We could tell from the stockpile of wood that there was about enough material to make a structure that was going to be approximately 4′ high by 6′ long and 3′ deep.  It was going to have an open entrance and some see-through slots that would act as natural windows without having to cut an actual window slot out.

As the afternoon heat set in, the hand sawing ended up being the most challenging part. We would take turns sawing through a big longboard for our sides and top before slapping it on with a few nails.  Often we would saw 3-4 inches, rest, saw a few more inches, rest.  My arms grew numb after a while but we had our sights on the end product and it was going to be a thing of beauty.

By later afternoon we were sweaty, dusty, and tired, but our structure was coming together. Jon’s dad came home a little after 5pm and checked in on our project.  He was impressed with what we had done with the boards.  We felt like we had really accomplished something.  He likes it.  Whew!

The very next day we were enjoying the fruits of our labor and naturally making big plans for phase II.  There was one thing about the fort though.  It was reasonably square at its sides, but overall it had a little wobble to it.

The wobble bothered me, and it felt a little like unfinished business.  Easy enough to fix though, I said to myself.  All we need to do is attached the fort to the house.   I don’t think Mr. Alger will mind.

So we dragged the fort to where it was butted up against the house for fastening, then proceeded to drive several nails from the side of the fort into the house.  Top and bottom for maximum stability.

There, much better!  Hardly any wobble.

Jon’s mom made us lunch that day so we could take it out to the fort.  We spent the rest of the day inside trying to figure out how we could ever top this accomplishment.

Mr. Alger did come home that evening and was not pleased that he now had a 72 square ft. addition to his house.  Free of charge mind you! Some guys are just natural complainers.  And that was the end of the fort project.