The climate in Western New York is heavily influenced by the nearby Lakes, Erie and Ontario. “Lake Effect Snow” is a phrase that frightens adults but is thrilling for kids. I loved the snow. It didn’t just cover us, it blanketed us deeply. Some years, blizzards shut everything down with an extra thick covering and it was wonderful. The Big Snoopy, formed from some type of wide but short branching tree and completely covered with a creeping ivy, was able to support this snow easily, even when the thickness was measured in feet rather than inches. Interesting to think about this now, since, as an engineer, I can appreciate the significance of the snow load. Manmade structures often would collapse under the weight of snow, but The Big Snoopy could handle it. I’d have to dig into the snow, tunnel, to find the hidden entrance into The Big Snoopy. But once inside it was a perfect pre-made igloo. It was an incredible fort for a kid, a magic thing that I appreciated at the time, but looking back from an adult’s perspective marvel even more. As I may have said before, as a kid I was big time into climbing trees. I probably considered this my greatest talent in my modest inventory. I’d climb up the densely branched core tree of The Big Snoopy, breaking branches as necessary to fit through them, and created a lookout spot where I could poke my head through a portion of the ivy. During the winter this small hole would let some snow in but not much, and it would eventually be covered over as the snow accumulated. I could make a hole through this snow in the lookout spot that would not be at all noticeable from the outside. This would allow some light to come into the space, which was good because even though light can shine through snow somewhat, it only provides the faintest amount when it is a foot or more thick.

I seem to recall being the first to pull apart the ivy and look inside one of these trees. I think I was the originator and discoverer. I’d like to think that, but I can’t say for certain this is a true memory or what I wished. I do have a sense that I found it first and shared with others, that is was mine. Inside the ivy, the lower, thinner branches of the trees had died, and were dry and brittle. Just a few bashes with a strong stick (always good to carry a strong stick around in case there was a need for some bashing) would clear them away completely and easily. An hour spent doing this would clear the entire inside of a covered tree, a volume about the size of a child’s room with plenty of height to stand, with a floor of broken sticks that helped to hold down the grass and weeds on the ground. This was a natural fort! And I loved forts. If something could be made into a fort, I made it into one and usually gave it a name. Many of these trees were dome shaped, so the inside was something like a huge vegetation igloo. And there were quite a few of them, I’ll say at least six, several of which were interconnected with some ivy, enough so one could crawl from dome to dome. One particular tree was quite large and misshapen in a peculiar way that, if seen from a distance at the correct angle of approach looked like Snoopy lying on his back on top of his dog house. This was dubbed “The Big Snoopy” and was the location of many tales I might not want to tell, but may share a few.

I recall a period when Bobby and I weren’t hanging out as much, or at all, that followed the great reveal that we were vandals. There were many times when I was “in the doghouse” as a kid, when I felt especially alone and miserable and “banished” from the rest of the world. Vandalism wasn’t new to me; I’d found things to break before. I’d been caught a few times breaking things, so it was generally agreed amongst our parents that I was the primary culprit and a bad influence on my best friend. This was, of course, true. I was a troubled kid, powerless and very alone/lonely. Even though I had Bobby as a great friend, he was often kept at home (or chose to stay there to watch Dr. Who), and I’m fairly certain a cooling off period was arranged as part of the punishment. There were many times when I’d just wandered around the Pit or ventured in other directions alone. Even as an adult, although I love the company of others and especially their attention, I find a comfortable peace by myself. As a kid I liked to explore and push the boundaries as far from my house as I could, often doing this alone and reporting back to my sister, or Bobby, or the other friends who sometimes visited our farm what I’d discovered. Directly behind our house was the horse coral with the basement of a barn off to the side. The horse my mother had always wanted was a short lived possession. Horses are expensive to keep and demanding on one’s time. The horse they bought, Rusty, was a beautiful animal, but not very friendly, nor in very good health from the beginning. I was three or four when he was around and had been bucked off a few times (according to family collective memory). Eventually the horse was sold, and the coral was overgrown with weeds and large plants. My father rarely cut these down with his Gravely tractor, so it was quite a big barrier to any sightlines to the rear of our property. Behind the horse coral was a bit of our property that we didn’t use for anything, an old well, some odd garbage heaps, a few clusters of small trees, and a back barbed wire fence separating our property from an unknown farmer’s corn field. I don’t recall ever seeing the tractors or harvesters on this field but it was planted and harvested, just always when I wasn’t around I suppose. I’d often make my way through this field and past the seldom used train tracks that ran a few hundred yards behind our property. In this area there were oddly shaped trees that were covered with creeping ivy that wasn’t Kudzu (we lived too far North for that). The trees were not choked and killed by this ivy but had a somewhat symbiotic existence with it and the leaves of the trees were difficult to distinguish from the leaves of the ivy which covered each tree entirely, from the ground to the very top. I would guess that most adults wouldn’t notice this type of vegetation or give it a second thought if they did. But as kids it was quite an interesting phenomenon, and then when we discovered what was inside these covered trees, it was like some type of magic.

I know I was punished, probably with the removal and/or destruction of one of my prize possessions, but I cannot recall what item it might have been. I had certain things that were dear to me and I’d lose them as punishment often, either for some short period or permanently forced to witness their destruction…the most famous (memorable) of the latter was an air rifle I surrendered after shooting a neighbor’s horse in the ass with it. That rifle, along with a 22 rifle that was sort of mine, but mostly my fathers, was also destroyed as a result of the horse shooting. The destruction was by way of sledge hammer on the floor of our garage. It was a terrible, lasting loss. Although shooting an innocent animal was a terrible crime, I’ll admit, it was a very weak air rifle and from a very great distance. The horse only jumped from the impact, and, as if it were a valid excuse, I’d been dared to do it by an obnoxious kid forced upon me by my parents’ church friendship with another family. That same obnoxious kid caused me many problems and there are many stories I could relate that involve him and his very dysfunctional family, but will resist these tangents. Suffice to say that his bad influence wasn’t my choosing, and the loss of something as precious to me as that air rifle over the horse pebble on the butt never seemed equitable. Amongst the other possessions I prized were a pair of cowboy boots that were at one time ridiculously large on me and eventually ridiculously small as I wore them for many years. I wore them so much the nails in the heals began to work their way through the inner sole and into my heals. I “fixed” this with some thick leather pieces I’d found and continued to wear the boots until they simply would not stretch any further and I couldn’t get them on my feet. Also very dear to me was an old very weathered leather carpenter’s apron, a tool belt really with big pouches for nails. I had bought this through a “porch sale” our church had thrown using our very large front porch and many donations from church members. I think I got the boots that way as well. I wore this like a utility belt with the two big pouches on my backside and the many other features (pockets of every size and shape, holders for little tools and one big loop for a hammer) on either side of my waist. It was rare not to see me in this tool belt when I wasn’t in school clothes. I kept both the tool belt and boots for many years, so I’m certain they were not the punishment item(s). Nor was it my bicycle. That would have been too devastating. The punishment wasn’t banishment from the Gravel Pit either, which would have made sense really. I don’t think I could have been stopped from going there in any event as I had a freedom from supervision that seems somewhat neglectful in hindsight, that is, as a parent I wonder how I could have been away with my whereabouts so often unknown. Maybe it was a different time, a different atmosphere, a different location, but the Gravel Pit remained our sanctuary and rightful possession (at least in our way of thinking). The fury at home blew over, as it always eventually did, and there was hardly any lingering effects there. In the Pit, that was a different story. While we didn’t see the Buckermeyers, we knew they were there, or at least close by. We began to make defenses and escapes. Plans were drawn up and schemes developed to fight or flight in the event that retribution became apparent. Looking back, I wonder if the teen agers held a grudge or cared all that much about the damage we did. I can’t imagine how much damage that could have been, aside from the destroyed liquor and naughty magazines. Maybe the front lock and latch, or some minor repairs to the structure, if we had managed to tear it apart much. We were, after all, about 10 and 9. We didn’t burn the place down, after all.

The confrontations on the bus are likely how my sister became involved, as she came to my defense. I don’t think she would have participated in the cabin wrecking, but maybe she did. Memories are funny things sometimes. I don’t really remember the confrontations themselves, but I recall the nature and intensity of the threats and fierce anger displayed. Not long after the vandalism, chatter in the back of the bus seemed to intensify and eyes would fixate on my sister and I as we’d board at our house. Matters were probably not helped that my sister was always ready for a confrontation and a dirty looks exchange (she could really give a dirty look), so those kids in the back of bus were prepared for a fight from the beginning. They also must have sensed that we were not the weak link in the trio. Bobby, who was picked up before us and already on the bus, began to look very scared and very sad around this time. He was a slight kid, with curly reddish brown hair and big freckles which stook out on his very, very pale skin. His mother was also a “sewer” like our mother so he often wore the same plaid “western pattern” button down shirt with pearlish snaps. Always a quiet kid, Bobby became completely mute and wouldn’t even make eye contact with me, had found a seat where I couldn’t sit with him. This took place of the course of a few days as I recall and Bobby and I didn’t play together after school during those days. The three of us quickly became the center of attention on the bus. We’d sit a bit more forward, even before knowing the full extent of the trouble, just sensing something was up. The revelation, when the shit hit the fan, was one day after school when my mother met us at the bus and we were read the riot act. Getting yelled at was somehow worse than getting hit because it lasted much, much longer. Hours sometimes. Her endurance and ability to maintain a full scale angry fervor was remarkable and exasperating. You didn’t dare show your discomfort or annoyance during these chewing out sessions. As a kid with a short attention span, this was torturous. As an aside, I’d point out that her teeth were not exactly centered on her face, so that the gap in the middle was off to one side, just a bit, making like one of the incisors was centered under her nose. This defect was often where I’d focus my attention, trying to appear intensely interested in the yelling. Years later, when I was too big to hit and out from under her thumb, I’d reveal this to torment her, payback. She’d laugh about it, because I revealed it in a funny way, but there was an understanding that there was resentment. The Buckermeyers had cornered Bobby and told him we’d done hundreds of dollars worth of damage and we’d pay for it, in many ways, but first with cold hard cash. Bobby had accumulated a small fortune from birthdays and Christmas money and paid them what he could already. He’d also attempted to get some cash from his parents through a poorly set up deception that was transparent and quickly dismantled to uncover the whole mess. His mother promptly alerted mine and there was hell to pay. Interestingly, as I remember it, the Buckermeyer parents never entered the picture. The money was kept, warnings were issued and somehow, our parents didn’t resolve this whole situation, although we were punished. That’s my memory anyway. From then on we had mortal enemies that we never saw in the Pit but we knew were nearby and waiting.