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Did you have a fort when you were a kid?

In my (younger) childhood I made tons of forts. We lived in a cul-de-sac and so during the winter we made snow out of the snow drifts just like shecky did. Those were really awesome. We then moved, and about 6 years ago we got 2 feet of snow (which is quite the anomaly for the DC area) and we made a whole fort out of the snow which got piled on the side of our driveway. After we made it, the snow had melted and refrozen so it was all solid ice and it was so much fun to play in. For indoor fort stories, we once made a fort with all of my cousins in my grandparents' family room out of their couches and chairs and some of their sheets. We used some folding tv tables and chairs to hold up the sheets in the middle and we created a whole sort of guard system to keep people out who weren't supposed to be in their. It was really cool.
 
BV, that hedge tunnels one is a work of genius. :D

My younger brother and I loved this sort of thing and would make them at any opportunity. We could just about squeeze behind the garage (and climb up the fences and sit on the roofs) that was a fort of sorts that was always there.

We also used to construct hugely complicated but temporary ones out of an old ladder we were allowed to play as a climbing frame, and then use bits of wood, blankets and, much to our parents' fury, the nets off the strawberries (this made it army like and was entirely essential).

As young teenagers my friends and I used to sit in a field down by the railway line, secretly, in the corn (or whatever it was) and were hidden from view by it being too tall. However, I realised we weren't so subtle as I was on the train and saw there was a huge hole in the field, clearly visible. :eek:

Later, we found a hole in the brambles by the side of the same field and used to sit in there and do all the secretive things that teenagers do like smoking dodgy Old Holborn rollups and the like. :p Twas our special place and we took a few bits and pieces down there to sit on and stuff. Sadly, a while later, my two best friends went there and took a massive and calculated overdose, again, because it was secret and safe and it was our place. (By a series of lucky events, they ended up being ok, and are now splendid twenty-eight year olds that I love to bits.)

A couple of years later I went back (none of us ever had gone back after that) and there was still paracetamol blister packs all over the ground. I don't think anyone else had ever found it. It was really sad and strange to go back and see all that and think of them there doing that by themselves.

Still, thinking about forts whilst writing this makes me think how important they were – at all the stages of being a kid there were always somewhere safe where there weren't adults, that you made the choice of how you used it and how it looked.

I actually wonder if a lot of the sheds/workshops/home offices on this earth are really just a fort substitute, where you can hide from the other adult in the house. ;)
 
I used to cut massive holes in our hedges at the back of our garden, boxes, hanging duvets, seriously, you name it, I could, and/or attempted to build a fort using it :p
 
Boy, did I ever. And when I build a fort, I do it right. I used a brand new wood shipping crate which I painted, built a proper door w/lock, shingled roof, I even built an attic! I recessed a pair of lights in a custom fixture that slid in and out of place as the door to the attic, cut out a hole and built a sliding plexiglass window, and it was furnished with shelves, a table, a couch, and a stereo. After I outgrew it it was passed on to my sister, and after she outgrew it my parents used it as a shed for years. It was a sturdy sucker too, you could go ahead and stand right on the roof and never have to worry about it collapsing.
 
Forts, my god, how time has passed. :D

There was an abandoned car scrapyard about 1/2 mile into the woods behind my folks old place. Man on man did we have some kick@$$ building supplies.

And we called ours a "base" as well. No girls allowed. ;)
 
My brother and I had a great fort when we were in our early teens. It was in Folsom, California where there was a lot of gold mining in the 1850's. The fort was within a deep cave that started its entrance at the apex of two perpendicular 40-foot trenches that were dug out by the early Chinese laborers-miners. About 200 feet within the cave was a fairly large hollowed out space from which we created a sort-of living room with benches dug into the sides to sit on. Its a wonder that our digging didn't bring the whole thing crashing down upon us. We brought in flashlights and lanterns and played cards and other games and ate goodies. Fun times. The cave is now a protected historic site and no one is allowed to enter it.
 
Yeah we did, but they were called "bases", Our one was in the bush out the back of our house, up in the trees - Ah those were the days not a care in the world!
 
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I never built an outside fort before, but I remember that my sister and I would get a long blanket and create a roof between a lounge and an armchair, or two chairs. On the inside we'd have heaps of cushions for support. They were the good 'ol days. :rolleyes:
 
Our fort was down a hill full of honeysuckle bushes. We had more fun building it than anything. We wove grape vines around small trees to make short walls. It was totally hidden from view. You could be 5 feet away and if you didn't know it was there, you couldn't see it. I can still remember the earthy smell.

At the top of OUR hill, there was a little clearing off the street where the local boys would park with their girlfriends after dark. We had more fun waiting for the car windows to fog up and then going up to the cars, making noises, tapping on the windows and running away to the safety of the fort. God, we were obnoxious.

With all the parental paranoia about stranger abductions, I wonder if kids still have all the fun we had playing outside after dark, building forts, playing at the creek, hiding out, etc.
 
Iscariot said:
Boy, did I ever. And when I build a fort, I do it right. I used a brand new wood shipping crate which I painted, built a proper door w/lock, shingled roof, I even built an attic! I recessed a pair of lights in a custom fixture that slid in and out of place as the door to the attic, cut out a hole and built a sliding plexiglass window, and it was furnished with shelves, a table, a couch, and a stereo. After I outgrew it it was passed on to my sister, and after she outgrew it my parents used it as a shed for years. It was a sturdy sucker too, you could go ahead and stand right on the roof and never have to worry about it collapsing.
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Heh, slightly more abitious than one me and my brother made. Our back garden was being 'built' at the time and we had stacks of bricks. We put a big sheet of metal ontop of the bricks and stuck a chair on it, then covered it with a tarpaulin that was drapped over 2 wooden planks in the ground to act as a doorway. Was bloody ace and looked like a 2 floor wigwam thingy. But saw a spider in there and never went back in.
 
I always had a for in the garage made out of shoe-boxes. I had to crawl on my stomach to get through it. My mom always took it down and put the shoe boxes away, but i always rebuilt it. I think the best part was the "secret exit" that I had, which was basically a hole covered by a basketball.

I wish I could just build forts all day like in the old days...:(
 
What a wonderful thread! It brings back so many memories.

I had more forts than I can remember. The best was a hedgerow fort carved out of briars and underbrush on the farm adjacent to my best friends home. The maze to crawl into the fort was easily defended and the roominess inside was deceptive. We had another one on stilts with a trap door, one in my barn, one in a tree overhanging a creek with a great rope swing, and one in an old pickup-truck camper top. I made temporary forts in my bedroom every chance I got with the most elaborate one covering every inch of my bedroom floor and extending up into the attic (for a quick escape).

We also made dozens of snow forts and snow tunnels. I can remember times when there would be only 6" of snow, so we would make giant snow balls (like we were going to make a snowman) and line them up to carve them into tunnels and rooms. There would be no snow left on the ground for several acres around our fort.
 
I was nearly killed in two of mine growing up. The first one we tunneled through a huge earth pile next to a foundation of a house that was being built in our neighborhood. We even took scrap wood from the trash piles outside of the other houses that were being built and fortified our tunneling mine style. One afternoon I went in there after it had been raining fairly hard and when I bumped the wall the whole thing caved in, wood and all. Luckily I was near the outside so I was able to get myself out since no one else was around.

A similar thing happened in a fort we constructed in a snow pile left behind by the snow plow. The pile was cone shaped and about 15 feet tall and maybe 20 or so feet across at the base. We tunneled inside the base and I climbed in and began hollowing out a huge room when it collapsed on me and my friends had to dig me out.

Scary stuff.

SLC
 
Of course! They were really fun. But they fell over a lot.

The best were makeshift tents made from old blankets and such. We were always immensely disappointed when rain came though them. ;)
 
ah, the good old days. :) not counting all the bamboo forts my cousin and i made behind my grandparents' house, i had one "real" fort and one that my dad built for me.

the "real" fort was built between 3 trees...it had a 2x4 frame with plywood walls and a leaky plywood roof covered with a tarp. one day my dad brought me home a piece of plexiglass, so i put in a window. he did all my cutting and helped me with planning, but measurements and assembly were all mine. i believe i was 8 at the time. i only smashed my thumb with the hammer twice.

when that fort rotted and collapsed, my dad built a nice two-story thing with a climbing wall and a fireman's pole. it was in that fort that my friend and i played our silly little "prairie days" game. :eek: we hunted for wild berries and brought water (from the swimming pool, of course) upstairs in a bucket via a pulley system for hand and clothes washing. we took our game very seriously...

and of course neither my little brother or hers was allowed. when they tried to come around we threatened to pelt them with rocks, which of course we had brought upstairs in the pulley bucket. :D
 
Uh, I stuck to the ones made with chairs and sheets and blankets in the living room.:eek:

My brother, on the other hand, made himself quite a nice cave in the side of a red clay bank (Georgia). It was all good until a torrential downpour came up, and he and his friends took refuge in it for shelter. It collapsed on them. He came home literally painted red! It was great for me, the little sister. I laughed hysterically as my mother made him strip to nothing and hosed him off on the back porch.:p
 
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