Authors Notes

A slight comment on this story.

It is semi-biographical, but also completely fabricated. I will leave it unsaid which is which, but I will say this much.

36th Avenue in Albany, Oregon is indeed a real street. And I did indeed spend a great many summers there growing up. Playing in the woods and tree houses, another kid that was not yet even a teenager in the early to mid 1970’s. The Timber Carnival was real, as were most other things I recreated as best as I could remember.

I had not gone back to there in many decades, until 2009 before I deployed to the Middle East. When driving around the area with my dad and wife, and without even thinking I directed him exactly where to turn off the highway. And what house to stop in front of. One I had not been to in three decades, but would never forget.

Then returning a few years later, this time on my own. And seeing that the access to the woods had indeed been cut off. Instead of ending at a trail where you could walk into them, the street ended at two houses. With tall fences, forever cutting off all access to the woods for the neighborhood kids.

I have often had a half-joking “Lottery Winning” dream. Where I would buy one of those houses. Then move the fence back about three feet, and create a trail to allow those living there to easily access the woods again. So they could again be filled with the shrieks and laughter of kids playing in them. Not the silence I heard on my last visit. Looking at them in the background behind a six foot tall fence.

And the joy of tomboys like ones I had known then, still girls that were not yet but someday would be amazing women.