Forts. Do you want to know what the most fun thing in the whole wide world is when you're 13 years old? Building forts. Yep, and I'm not talking about the kind when you push couches close together and put blankets over top with a vacuum for the center post... although those are fun too! I'm talking about real outdoor forts (oh, and ps--it's not a "club," it's a fort!). The kind of forts that you are never done building! The kind where it takes a ridiculous amount of time and physical labor to gather all the wood and put together. My best buddy and I would spend big chunks of our summer and free time after school with a few neighborhood boys putting together our masterpiece. Some weekend nights we would even build a small fire and just hang out. Our fort was so awesome that we had old couches and could sit in there without getting wet--yeah, waterproof fort! We were cool kids. ;)
Horses. On top of all of this grueling labor, my buddy's family owned a couple of horses that needed taking care of. So every day around 5, we would trek back to her house, which was rather close to our fort, and feed her horses. Now, if any of you are thinking that feeding horses is as easy and simple as feeding dogs or cats--think again! Feeding horses is a form of physical conditioning in and of itself. We would have to carry these huge buckets full of water, measure the horses' grain perfectly, give them the right amount of hay, clean their stalls, ensure that we led them into the barn in a particular order (so the male didn't get angry), and not get trampled in the process. Before we started this process, we would at the very least change our shoes--you don't want your school sneaks to get all muddied up--and if you've been caring for horses most of your life, you would also change from your jeans into... pink sweatpants! That's right, pink sweatpants do indeed exist, and they are absolutely hideous! But who cares how disgusting they look if you're just intending on getting them dirty!
Trouble-makers. Now I know this is going to be extremely difficult to believe, but KR and I were... maybe... a little bit of troublemakers at times. For instance: KR had an unfairly early curfew, but how are we supposed to know what time it actually is when we are hanging out in our fort?! There are no clocks in forts (not even our deluxe fort), and we hadn't yet mastered reading the sun for the time or wearing wrist watches (and this was before cell phones). Our hands were tied. We couldn't help but being late most of the time. Hey, time flies when you're having fun! Another for instance: we may have every once in awhile on multiple occasions made a huge mess of my mother's kitchen. But come on, what are we supposed to do?! We had to make jello, brownies, and french toast when we were hungry! We were just trying to be resourceful! And I am convinced that the world did indeed benefit from our Ramen: how to cooking show. And to be fair, our hippocampi and pre-frontal cortexes were still forming at this age--we didn't put everything away because we must have forgotten where it all went. And as for cleaning up... well, horses' lives depended on our going to feed them! If we didn't show up hours early, we could have been late! I'm just saying!
Best Buddy. Through all of this, hundreds of viewings of Finding Nemo, and all the other things KR and I have done over the years, I have a Best Buddy! She's pretty awesome! I am very grateful! And just to give credit where it is due and relate this post to the series it is within: the first time I stepped into a Presbyterian church was because of her. It's interesting how things work out sometimes.
Left to Right: KR, AG, EK, me!
How this helps: Building design & maintenance, responsibility, love, importance of inviting friends to church.
Next Post: Truckin' Along
Peace be with you! =)
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