As the semester here starts to end, and I get ready to trade my time in the piney woods of Tyler for the Brown ones of home, I want to tell you about my house.
It’s this old four-bedroom job they built twenty years ago or so for Pine Cove directors to live in. We stuff 10 dudes in there, have a dining room table and a plastic picnic table in our living room so everyone gets a place to sit and eat, and we light bonfires in our backyard on a nightly basis. This latter portion leads to great amounts of fun and manhood. The first time we lit said fire, we tore down an old wooden playhouse in the backyard and used it as tinder. There were cinder blocks involved. It was wanton destruction. It was rad.
We live right by the entrance to the Ranch camp, so the surrounding environment is peculiar. The girl house, holding the 6 ladies who do the Forge with us, live to the left. Behind us is a thin part of the forest, through which we can sometimes glimpse the Timbers junior high camp, and usually acquire a great view of the evening sunset. In front of us are such fun sights as the camp horse pen, an outdoor sport court, and best of all, a skatepark. It has halfpipes and everything. If I wanted to relive every fantasy from Tony Hawk Pro Skater, all I have to do is walk over and unlock the shed (and throw on smelly junior-high boy knee pads). Sk8ing is harder than it looks, though. I’m almost tempted to use the dang board as a luge or something instead.
I’ve lived in a succession of places over the past five years, and I imagine I’ll switch abodes again come next year. But I think the best part about the place is that maybe, just maybe, I’ll kind of miss it when the break starts…
… which means it’s starting to feel sort of like my home.
Ben Humeniuk 