Prologue

We moved into our house when I was eleven years old. The house stood on a large corner lot with a spacious back yard. We had three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a living room, kitchen and a family room. The house suited our family perfectly because I had no siblings. My parents had a bedroom with a master bath. I had a bedroom for myself. That left the remaining bedroom for guests. I shared a bath with any occasional guests.

The house had a driveway with a detached two-car garage to one side. The garage had a large back section with its own separate entrance. It appeared that the back of the garage had been designed for a workshop. In fact, I think the workshop served as a major influence in my father's decision to purchase this house.

An enormous, old oak tree dominated the back yard shading the back of the house as well as a considerable portion of the yard. You might even describe the tree as stately. Its powerful trunk split about ten feet off the ground into three large branches that further developed into a substantial canopy. To an eleven-year-old kid, it loomed as a climbing tree, a challenge to the adventurous. My father saw it differently.

By the time we had settled in and I had celebrated my twelfth birthday, my father had decided that we would build a tree house. He worked as a civil engineer. I think that the tree house project provided a means for him to teach me what he did for a living. Even more than that, he wanted to introduce me to his passion for building. Of course, I looked up to my father. To me he represented everything a dad should be. I wanted to know what he knew and to learn how to do what he could do. I remain convinced that he wanted the same; that is, he wanted me to understand his love of building things and he wanted to teach me to use tools well. He had all kinds of tools: hand tools, power tools, woodworking tools, mechanics tools and electrical tools.

The tree house served as a perfect project. First we measured the tree both vertically and horizontally. I think Dad tried to teach me the importance of planning and design. Then we drew up plans. Dad had a computer with several kinds of design programs some of which we used to draw plans for the tree house. My Dad involved me in every step of the process. I even learned how to use the main design program, at least a little.

Then we visited salvage yards where one could buy almost any kind of building materials for a fraction of the cost of a lumberyard or big box do-it-yourself store. We bought all of the wood, the windows and many of the special fittings. The only things we bought new were nails, screws, drywall and roofing material.

In the end we built a relatively small structure. The inside dimensions were about ten by twelve feet. The bottom was about fifteen feet above the ground. We entered through a pull-down staircase like those often used to access an attic. The housing for the stairs hung below the floor of the tree house. We included a trap door that could be closed. Once you had entered the tree house, the trap door covered the entrance.

Since the pull down stairs weren't long enough to reach the ground, we built a platform at the base of the tree under the stairs about six feet high with steps up to the platform. Dad also designed a clever hand-cranked mechanism that could lower and raise the stairs. The crank was housed in a box with a lockable door fastened to the side of the tree. A sheath protected the mechanism connecting the crank to the stairs. That meant that only someone with a key to the box could lower the door to get into the tree house from the outside.

We did not build a bare-bones tree house. Three of the walls had real windows that could open and close. The walls were about seven feet high. We finished the trussed roof with real roofing material and asphalt shingles. We put linoleum tiles on the floor adding a couple of area rugs that we bought at a thrift shop.

Dad ran a fifty-amp cable to a substation box in the tree house so we could have lights and outlets. We bought a cheap TV to play video games and watch DVDs. We even installed a ceiling fan in the rafters that made a real difference in hot weather.

We used Dad's workshop to build a futon frame with drawers under it. We actually hauled the frame up into the tree house in pieces and assembled it there. It was great to sit on as a sofa while watching movies or playing video games. It also served as a bed when folded down.

We built a couple of small bookcases that I used to store games and some of my favorite books. Dad found an apartment size refrigerator and a small countertop microwave oven on Craigslist. We took almost a year to design and complete the tree house. Our home had a wireless phone with multiple stations that included an intercom feature. When we finished construction, Dad bought an additional station for the tree house so we could use the intercom to talk between the house and the tree house.

By the time I had celebrated my thirteenth birthday, we had created the perfect hide-away. Over the next year my Dad and I spent a lot of time there together as did my friends and I. In warm weather I often slept in the tree house.

During this time my Dad gave me "The Talk;" you know, the one about sex. While my parents were socially liberal, they believed very strongly in personal responsibility. My father explained responsibility with respect to sex as my obligation to protect my partners and myself. He emphasized that if a girl says 'No' it means no and that I should go no further.

He admitted that some girls might say 'no' when they meant 'try harder to show me you really want me.' He advised me that in such a situation the girl was not yet mature enough to make a decision to have sex. He added that I should just walk away until the girl grew up enough to behave as an adult.

He gave me other advice including how to get a girl's attention and interest in a positive way. Most of that had to do with treating her respectfully and being a good listener. Above all else he advised that I should treat all my friends with respect. He added that I should expect respect from my friends. That advice has served me well my entire life. I found it especially valuable during the awkward years of teenage development.

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