Before there was Minecraft

The sun filtered through the branches of the tree into the sand box of our backyard. Justin and I were working different sides, working on our own creations, trying to share the story of our Matchbox cars. My knees were outside of the wood sides of the box, outside of the world we were building. I am certain my Wrangler blue jeans and t-shirt with a silly picture on the front were completely trashed, but I didn't care. I leaned over the edge, kept my head low, trying to get my eyes to the level of the little cars.

There was a pit in the middle, which Justin and I had both dig out before we started constructing the roadways. Around the inside of the pit was a flat path, just a little wider than the cars we had run around it. From here I could see spots where we had left clear finger marks. I imagined they were just dips in the road. Above this road, closer to the edge of the sand box, we were working on a second road. For this one, we were able to use little construction vehicles to finish off the details. So, with my eye near the dirt, I watched my bulldozer push a stick to the side. I could see Justin parting the path flat across the way.

A squirrel started making a clicking sound in our direction and a leaf dropped from the tree above us into the granules, which looked like rocks I was so close to them. Justin grabbed his crane, wheels clogged with slightly moist earth and pushed it along the road to where the leaf fell. Using his hand he placed the stem of the leaf in the hook of the crane and then backed it towards his base of operations. It would become the roof of his stick garage, which housed the half dozen cars he was playing with.

In the years that followed the sandbox went away and we played further and further from the house. This didn't mean we were out of the yard, just we were further and further back on the long piece of property my parents owned, in this gradual creep, one of my favorite spots was a big gap in the lilacs the boarded one side of the yard.

Justin, some neighborhood kids and I were in the gap of the woods. Our base. It offered a little cover and had a big enough area for us all to hang out. On one side of the gap, was my backyard, on the other half was apartment property, but it was unkept. You could, with just a short walk through, get to the dumpster of the two brick buildings. The dumpster was great, close enough you could hear if Mom called, far enough she couldn't see what you were doing and it held mysteries. Today, we were going to see what we could find to improve our base.

I climbed inside and started handing out anything I thought might be useful. Bent pieces of plastic, boards, a portable rug sample display all made their way over to the base. We imagined we were building a shelter, someplace we could go to if we had to. We built a roof, which would keep the rain out. We used board to make a ladder like climbing system. I say ladder like, because we didn't cut the boards or use nails, we just wedged them so they were climbable. We made a little space to keep treasures, digging a hole in the ground and covering it with a section of board. Then, up in the branch of the tree, we placed the portable rug display, opening it, propping it in the tree so it looked like a multicolored seat. Then, I secured it with branches and a little rope we had.

When it was all said an done, it felt like we had really done something. We had built a base of operations, a fort. The kids from the surrounding houses needed to go home, but this was still our place. It was gritting towards dinner, but I wanted t try the seat just one time before we went in to wash the sap and trash stickiness off our hands. I climbed the rough ladder, shimmied along the branch and sat, gently in the seat. I smiled at the view, but immediately the seat was lowering. The branch was bending under my weight. Six inches, a foot, then two feet. Then, with a loud crack, the branch completely failed and I dumped, throne and all, to the bare ground of the base. There it sat, while my brother and I ate dinner and considered if it could be fixed.