Chapter 1

I still remember the summer of 1972. I was seven years old, and after visiting San Francisco, we drove up through the Redwoods, then visited the Oregon Caves. Camping in a tent with my parents, then stopping in Albany, Oregon to visit my paternal grandparents.

Grandpa had recently retired, and after a lifetime moving for the Army they had finally settled down. The plan was for staying there a few days then returning home, but when my grandfather realized that like him I liked fishing, soon he proposed letting me stay there for the summer.

I was all for it, as for the first time I was actually meeting my cousins. There were six of them, about half of them my age (or within 2 years of my age). And as they often visited with my grandparents, they knew the area well and were already showing me the creek at the end of the road.

Just a few hundred yards from the house, was some thick woods. And once in there, over a hundred acres of trails. All with Oak Creek winding through it. It was from two to ten yards wide, but there were logs all over that had fallen or been dropped so you could cross it. And tree houses and tree forts everywhere. Some were obviously ancient and not safe, but some were obviously maintained. My first few days there, we were often down at the creek as soon as they arrived. And also the two brothers that also lived across the street.

I barely even noticed my parents leaving a few days later. They said goodbye, and the six of us were down at the creek. And in the evening two or three days a week I would go out with my grandfather on the Santiam or Willamette Rivers. Or playing with Rob and Ryan, the kids across the street.

And it was a very different era. No cable TV, only four stations. No video games in the house, even Pong was new to the arcades and cost a quarter. In the afternoon after 3 until almost 5 it was normally “kid shows”, but not like today. Normally blocks of old cartoons like “Popeye”, with an actual host and small audience of kids. And one of the common shows being repeated was the Batman TV series from a few years ago.

So with towels clipped around our necks, we often would run through the woods, being Batman and Robin, or the Joker, Egghead, or whoever else was the guest villain that week.

One of the highlights was the Independence Day Weekend. That was also when the County Fair was held, and it was a huge event. Also it was the Timber Carnival. As back then Oregon and Albany were still “Logging Towns”, that was almost a Championship for those that were into those kinds of things as a sporting event.

Chopping logs with a single and double bit axes, one and two man blade saws, even using a belt and harness and climbing 50 feet up a log then cutting off the top with saws or axes. Or climbing up and down as fast as they could. And throwing axes, always a popular event.

But the highlight was always in the pond at the front. Where they did the log rolling competitions. Two people on a single log in the water. Running on it to get it spinning, and trying to get the person on the other end to lose their balance and fall into the water. I was fascinated watching these things, they were cool games, but nothing like I had ever seen before.

Then on the night of the 4th of July, taking blankets to the fairgrounds and laying them out on the grassy slopes around that large pond, where they launched fireworks into the sky. Then another month and a half of fishing, playing around Oak Creek, and the like. But also broken up right after by a trip to the beach.

My cousins were actually from a town on the coast, and like me they were staying with their grandmother, my grandfather’s sister. Most of the clan tended to have one or two kids, but that branch had six of them. In a huge house a short walk from the beach. That was kind of cool, as I would borrow one of their bikes and we would ride down to the beach on nice days.

But finally the summer was over, and it was time to go home. So we would get into my Grandfather’s Continental, and start the two day drive back to LA.

The next year, there was a family reunion planned up in Washington. And as my parents had bought a cabover pickup camper the year before, we took that. And after picking up my grandparents we drove to the Hood Canal, a short distance from Seattle. Then four days on the beach, eating oysters, clams, and all kinds of stews made from them as the old folks hung out together.

Then back to Albany, where my parents left me yet again. But I was a bit surprised when in front of the house across the street I did not see Rob or Ryan, but a girl about my age. I went over and introduced myself, and she said her name was Kim.

Now Kim was a bit of a tomboy, and as we started talking I found out she had moved there with her mom and sister just the month before. And that she had never really gone into the woods at the end of the block, being a bit frightened by them. I told her that was nonsense, and after getting permission I took her down there.

And once we got into the woods, she loved it. Her sister Patty was two years younger than we were, so she mostly stayed at home. But during the second week when I said that instead of our normal evening stroll I was going fishing with my grandfather, she asked if she could come along.

It was quite odd decades later when Tim McGraw wrote the song “Don’t Take the Girl”, because it was both just like Kim and I that summer, but not. As we were both 8 years old, but I was all for her joining us. Grandpa was also, so he pulled out another pole and we climbed into that Continental and headed out to the Santiam River near Lebanon.

Now one thing about my grandfather, he loved fishing. We rarely caught anything, but that was not the point of fishing. It was for us to go out and have some time together, just the two (or three) of us. And it was not the first for Kim, she had no problem putting the worm on the hook, or even cleaning the fish she caught. So that summer she normally joined the two of us, fishing in different spots along the river.

And the neat part was when it was time for the Timber Carnival. Kim’s mom worked at the local Coke Bottling Plant, and she got us an invitation to ride on their float for the parade that always started that week. Now the float was not quite what I expected, being from LA and seeing the big parades down there every year. But it was a VW van, with streamers and banners on it. But Kim and I still had a lot of fun, riding in the back and waving to everybody as we drove through town at a crawl.

And we also hung out together during most of the Carnival. We would watch the lumberjack events at the pond, then go on a few rides or watch the concerts before meeting her mom or my grandparents at the end of the day and going home.

The next year was quite different, however. That spring my mom had gotten a great job offer in Idaho, so at the end of the school year instead of a vacation in Oregon, we moved from California to Idaho. Now this kinda bummed me out, but I liked it there a lot more than LA. There was a river that I could fish in that ran right through the middle of town. And that summer I learned how to operate a sailboat, and in the winter learned how to ski.

And the next summer, it was the Bicentennial. So once again, instead of going to Oregon for the summer, we took a family vacation the other way. Going to Yellowstone, and seeing a lot of Montana and Wyoming. I loved the trip, and still got in a lot of fishing.

It was not until 1977 that I finally returned to Albany for the summer. And I first realized that things had changed a lot in the last few years is when I saw Kim. Now, I had of course always known she was a girl. But at the same time, she was also “one of the guys”. She saw nothing wrong with playing “Bat Girl” or “Catwoman” in our play in the woods, and would get down and play fight just like me and my cousins did.

But seeing her for the first time in years, there was no doubt she had changed. It was hard to actually put it in words, but she was, “more female” if that makes any sense. She still had the shape and body of a 12 year old girl, but I was seeing her a bit different.

Playing Batman was no longer a thing to do, as the show had been off the air for years by then. But we still played in the woods, and started to finally climb up into the tree houses. We had to do this very carefully, as many were not well maintained. And when I tried to climb one, Kim said we could not go into that one.

She pointed to a step nailed into the tree, and I saw it had “J + M 77” written on it. She then explained to me the “Tree House Code” that the kids had all used in this area. Apparently at the start of the spring, a kid or group of kids would “adopt” one of them, and they would mark the first step near eye level with their initials and the year.

All the other kids would honor that, and that tree house was “off limits” to all others for that and the next year. But so long as they replaced the step every year with the new year, their claim remained. Scrounging any supplies from inside was forbidden, as was entry without permission.

We still went up in some, but had to do it carefully as most of the unclaimed ones were in really bad shape. I even saw on the end of a 2x4 on one of them a lumber mark showing it had been milled in 1961, before I was even born.

We looked all that summer, but never found an unclaimed one that we really liked. But we climbed many, and spent many hours out there. Once even going way deep into the woods, until we reached the banks of the Calapooia River. We excitedly went back and told that to my grandfather, who of course insisted we show him. It was about a half hour trek through the woods, and he smiled when we finally made it there. But he was an old man in his 50’s, and the walk through the woods with two pre-teens was a bit much for him. He admired the view, but said it was too long of a hike to go fishing.

I think that 4th of July when was when I first realized some things were changing. Shortly after the fireworks started I felt Kim take my hand in hers. And she squeezed as she laughed every time one went off. We were only 12, but this was still causing some interesting reactions in my mind and body. Just entering puberty is such a confusing time for sure.

And at the end of the summer, Kim actually gave me a hug. It was obvious she was sadder than our previous partings, but she said she looked forward to my returning the next year.

Of course, we did keep a bit in contact during the rest of the year. Normally writing two or three letters during that time. Telling each other what we had been up to, congratulating each other on our birthdays, things like that. I wrote to her about being on the ski team, and my joining the wrestling team in Junior High. And she told me about being on the softball team at her school. And in 1978 I was looking forward to going back to Oregon for the summer.

This time my dad drove me as my mom could not take the time off work, and we arrived in the evening. So I could not see Kim until the next morning. But I was out of the door almost as soon as I finished rushing through breakfast. And when her mom opened it she smiled and welcomed me back. She then yelled for Kim, and told me I had been all her daughter had been talking about for the last week.

And when came out of the hallway into the living room, I realized that she really was a girl. With a capital “G”. Her hair was a bit longer, and she had the start of a figure. Not much of one, but there was no way to deny that my summer best friend actually had breasts. Not even an A cup, but the two bulges were obvious. And lower down she was a bit more rounded as well. She gave a small yell and ran over and gave me a hug, which I returned as her mother laughed.

And getting her permission we were soon heading off down the road to the woods. Kim was telling me all about the last two weeks since school ended, and said she had something she wanted to show me. We were maybe a quarter of a mile inside the woods, and she pointed to a tree house off to the side. And on the step at eye level it had “K + K 78” on it. I looked at her, and she said it stood for “Kim and Kevin”. I laughed, and insisted it stood for “Kevin and Kim”, and that soon started a pushing tickle fight.

But being bigger as well as having learned a lot from wrestling, I soon had her on her belly as I sat on her bottom and was tickling her almost senseless. But I also noticed that I was pressing into her bottom, and it was causing a reaction I was starting to recognize.

I was getting an erection. As I was pressed against the bottom of my best friend. Now I had been in similar positions many times in wrestling, but it never caused that reaction. But by then, I was also realizing what such things signified, and quickly rolled off of her. She rolled onto her back and grinned at me, so obviously she did not realize exactly what was pressing against her butt.

We of course climbed in the tree house, and it was not bad. A large platform about 12 feet across, with walls and a ceiling also of plywood. The room was only about 4 feet tall, so we had to stoop. But she had also found a few wood boxes that were set up as chairs, and a small table. On it was a pack of soda, and she quickly pulled a can off of the pack and handed it to me, then one for herself. Warm soda, still a memory to this day that brings me back to those summers in Oregon.

We sat and talked, and started giving ideas of what to do up there. My grandfather had a lot of things in his garage, and I was sure he would give us some of them to improve things in there. And when we headed on home for lunch, we told him what we were doing.

An hour later we were heading back to the tree house. Hammers, nails, some boards, even some old sheets, a tarp, and a rope and pulley loaded in her sister’s wagon. We spent that day nailing the tarp on the roof, then nailing a 2x4 outside a window and feeding the rope through it. This let us bring things up more easily, just tie it to a bucket and I could pull it up. No more the risk of trying to climb while holding something.

I even had a hasp and lock, which we fit to the trap door on the floor. I was screwing that in as Kim was nailing the sheets over the windows to use as curtains. And when we were done just about the time we had to head back, it was a lot better. Since it is Oregon, it did rain semi-often, even in the summer. This way we could be up here even then, and not have to worry about getting wet.

I also brought along my transistor radio, and we were singing along with the songs on the radio. Bee Gees, Kenny Loggins, Little River Band, and the Village People seemed to be on all the time. And even Patty liked it when we brought her with us. At 11 she was a lot more fun than she had been at 6. And she is the one that first said we should camp there and spend the night.

Well, Kim and I both liked that idea, and after locking everything up we headed to see her mom. But she was not sure that was a good idea, wondering both if it was safe, and if it was a good idea for two girls to be sharing that space with a boy.

Thankfully my uncle got there the next day, and we told him what we had done. He was in the Army, and was actually a construction specialist. He asked us to show him, and once he climbed in he looked around and said it was not bad. Then asked us why we had built it the way we had.