Who built forts or played army as kids?

[JasonRox]

I know I did.

We built new forts, like every other month. We constantly improved everything. Our forts were entirely built out of stuff in the forest. We used things like long grass or hay for string.

We also played army too. That was fun because it was quite serious with ranks and everything. No violence though. This wasn't a daily thing either. It went on yearly, and you couldn't move up unless you were rewarded that position for something you did.

It was awesome.

How about you?

Note: Trying to start an interesting thread. I have to say the "Stairs" thread is heading somewhere.

 

[franznietzsche]

I know I did.

We built new forts, like every other month. We constantly improved everything. Our forts were entirely built out of stuff in the forest. We used things like long grass or hay for string.

We also played army too. That was fun because it was quite serious with ranks and everything. No violence though. This wasn't a daily thing either. It went on yearly, and you couldn't move up unless you were rewarded that position for something you did.

It was awesome.

How about you?

Note: Trying to start an interesting thread. I have to say the "Stairs" thread is heading somewhere.

Hellz yeah. My cousins own a ranch out in the desert that has a wash where bamboo grows(california desert...bamboo...don't ask me...). We'd cut down the bamboo in the middle of the thickets (tough task for ten year olds and tall bamboo) and turn them into forts. We had a nice setup. We used the shoots we tore down to build walled passages between nearby thickets, tore dried moss off the bottom of the wash and used it to carpet the interiors. Lot of work went into that place. Loads of fun though.

My grandparents own a log home on a lake in minnesota, on a dirt 'cliff' (you can walk up and down it, though it is fairly steep). There was a large tree that hung out over it, with a trunk that went just a little above horizontal. So we nailed boards up and built a hap-hazard fort there. Then we would take extra boards and 'sand board' down to the lake.

Fun times.

 

[Mk]

Hellz yeah! Bamboo's delicious.

 

[franznietzsche]

Hellz yeah! Bamboo's delicious.

Well we didn't eat it, and we wouldn't want to. Like i said, this stuff was growing in the middle of the desert, in a stream bed that had water 2-3 months a year, tops. Not the tasty kind of bamboo.

 

[Mk]

Did you ever make anything else with it?

 

[tribdog]

you ever see the video of people getting caned? ouch

 

[Norman]

Man we built the best fort. We lived in the burbs, but a neighbor of ours had a huge field which had a strip of forest mainly brush but some big trees. We pilfered old shingles from a half burned barn near us and used planks for the floor, we camoflaged it with the long grasses of the field near us. We used to do all sorts of weird kid things out there. We built traps to protect our fort. We dug a big pit (we thought so anyways) and covered it like we saw on the movies and cartoons we watched. That really made the owner mad in a couple of years when he decided to cut the grass... oops. We used to try and set snares for rabbits, never worked. We defended our fort with slings and stick swords against the local hoodlums (our rival group) who would try and steal our shingles and planks for their fort. I remember my younger brother took a stone to the head pretty bad (or so we thought, he didn't get knocked out or anything, just a little blood) and I took my stick club and hit the kid as hard as I could and he ran away and cried... kinda brutal I guess. Those were great times, until the neighbor kids and my brother started a fire in the fort and it caught some of the grass camo on fire and the had to put it out. Well they all smelled like fire and they got busted and we couldn't go to the fort anymore. Why is fire so appealing to little kids? It just is I guess.

 

[Janitor]

I always associate underground-pit forts with dirt-clod wars. The local patch of dirt, which had been a cotton field at one time, had hundreds of dump-truck mounds of waste dirt from construction projects. It was a perfect setting for forming rival armies and going to war. Dirt clods were our hand grenades.

 

[BobG]

We had a cornfield behind the houses on my street. We built an underground fort with a huge piece of plywood on top, then covered the plywood with the dirt and cornstalks. We cut a door in the plywood to get in and out. Great fun in a fort hidden by the corn.

At least until the day we heard this strange rumbling sound coming our way and someone had go up top and see what was happening. Dang! It's harvest time already!?

The farmer was so puzzled by where all these little kids running for their lives came from, it didn't even occur to him they might just be coming from underground. Ran his tractor right onto the plywood, which quickly broke dropping the nose of his tractor into the hole. I'm not sure if it caused any damage to the tractor, but it sure made him someone to avoid at any cost.

 

[Janitor]

...At least until the day we heard this strange rumbling sound coming our way...

Adults always used to warn us not to play in cardboard boxes in the alley, since the trash truck might run us over.

 

[Kerrie]

my son and daughter are always building forts in the house...we have a ton of blankets, they have bunk beds and an inside tent...since this is the colder part of the year, forts tend to keep them occupied since they constantly are falling down or apart...

 

[tribdog]

I'm always scared to run over bags and boxes. I always picture them being full of kittens.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I was a kid during WWII; my first decent drawings were of major cannon and soldiers in tunnels, inspired by diagrams of the Maginot line I had seen in Life. Later I dug a "Jap trap", a camouflaged pit, in the back yard and twisted my sister's boyfriend's ankle one dark night. The war surplus stores were my delight; I had a real helmet liner and obsolete gas mask.

 

[tribdog]

did you trap any japs?
edit:did you trap any japs, you old fart.

 

[spender]

I played doctor with girls from my neighborhood

 

[tribdog]

I played mortician, got me used to dating later in life

 

[Gale]

We used to make forts at recess all the time. It was actually kind of weird cause there was this awesome spot to play and build in, and the boys always wanted it, but us girls defended it and kept it the whole time, pretty awesome.

At home though, we'd build snow forts a lot, and we tried to build club houses all the time. My sister and i also had bunk beds that made a pretty sweet fort. But most of the time, we'd just play in the big cherry tree in the front yard. That was the coolest. We all had our own branch, and we'd pretend to be little monkeys. All the neighborhood kids always wanted to play in the tree cause it was soo cool. My dad always got really mad though, we broke a lot of the branches off, and skinned the bark off in places. Plus the tree was located in the greenest part of the yard and my dad was one of those "yard guys." but we still loved to play in that tree. Oh man, good times.

 

[misskitty]

We'd run around to the back lot of our house and gather up a bunch of fallen tree braches and stuff and make teepees and pretend we lived in Native American villiages.

Gale, I used to build snow forts too! It was a blast, especially when the neighbor plowing the driveway made a huge pile for us to start with. When we had snowball fights between forts, my friends would have to pick me up so I could through the snowballs...:laugh:I couldn't see over the top wall of the snow fort!

 

[JasonRox]

We'd run around to the back lot of our house and gather up a bunch of fallen tree braches and stuff and make teepees and pretend we lived in Native American villiages.

Gale, I used to build snow forts too! It was a blast, especially when the neighbor plowing the driveway made a huge pile for us to start with. When we had snowball fights between forts, my friends would have to pick me up so I could through the snowballs...:laugh:I couldn't see over the top wall of the snow fort!

Speaking of teepees, I remember building one as a kid too. It was actually REALLY big. You can see it from outside the little forest.

We had an entrance, hallway and 3 rooms. We had 3 ROOMS! It was 4 teepees connected all together too. We used trees that have fallen, so it was quite high.

I so miss being a kid.

 

[misskitty]

I can agree with that! Thats a HUGE teepee!

How long did it take you to build that sucker?

 

[franznietzsche]

I played doctor with girls from my neighborhood

They must have been very good at labotomies.

 

[franznietzsche]

I played mortician, got me used to dating later in life

Ain't that the truth...

 

[misskitty]

Isn't it funny what we do as kids to keep ourselves occupado?

 

[spender]

They must have been very good at labotomies.

He He He He, very funny !

 

[mattmns]

Originally I had a bunch of boxes layed out like a small room with two entrances outside that was about 12x8x5ft. I can not remember what my friends and I did in there, but one day we were screwing around with matches, or a lighter or something, and that thing was soon gone lol. Later I had a swingset/playground thing that had a big square thing like a treehouse, that was cool, but I do not remember any remarkable stories from it

edit... for playing games. Did not play much outside except football, and smear the queer. Also played a lot of video games.

 

[misskitty]

Ohhh Ohh...I remember doing that too. My sisters and I comendeered several rooms in the house to built those cardboard box forts...those were so much fun.

 

[Gale]

Hmm, we never made box forts at my house, usually we'd just use couch cushions and pillows, (those forts were the best one's to destroy.) we did have lots of other use for cardboard boxes, like riding down the stairs in them, and taping them up with us inside and trying to make like houdini... ah, the good old days.

 

[misskitty]

I remember sliding down the stairs on couch cusions too. We used to have contests to see who could go down the fastest.

 

[franznietzsche]

I remember sliding down the stairs on couch cusions too. We used to have contests to see who could go down the fastest.

i remember trying to fly off the couch...

When you're only 3 feet tall, and you get six feet into the air it seems like it works too. Until impact anyway.

Actually it was probably more like five feet, but still.

 

[mattmns]

Yeah going down stairs in a cardboard box is fun. Hell, I remember doing a little more advanced version my senior yr in hs. More of a surfing type action down the stairs, we had this box that was about 4-6ft long and stood on top of it and slid down 2 sets of stairs, maybe 1.5, they were continous, fun times.

Anyone here rig up wagons? I remember my friends and I rigged up one of those red wagons with a bunch of plywood to make it look like a car. It actually ended up looking like a big rectangular box almost like a school bus lol. We ended up tying the wagon to the back of one of our mountain bikes and took turns riding it down the hill. This was all fun until one of my friends went down a little too fast (maybe 20/25mph) and while turning, the whole wagon flipped over and fell apart lol.

 

[The Bob]

I'm going to be a part of an ambush soon, a fake one. I will have some blank rounds and a rifle. Not really playing though. It is serious.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[tribdog]

we'lll be using fake bandages to plug up the very real wounds you receive if you ambush the wrong people

 

[Gale]

i remember trying to fly off the couch...

When you're only 3 feet tall, and you get six feet into the air it seems like it works too. Until impact anyway.

Actually it was probably more like five feet, but still.

I wish my siblings and i had found jumping off the couch to be more thrilling... but no, we opted to jump out our second story window instead. We thought we were so cool. Sometimes we'd jump out with plastic grocery bags and use them as parachutes. It was so much fun. Mum and dad hated it though, we'd get grounded and be like... heh so what, and jump out the window. The worst part was probably when mum planted her rose bush underneath the window. It wasn't quite as comortable... but it sure didn't stop us.

Actually my older sister and i, when she was like 17 and i was like 12, we thought we should try jumping out the window like we did when we were little, we realized that we were much crazier back then... I didn't remember it hurting my legs so bad...

 

[tribdog]

In my first year in college I bet everyone I could do a back flip off the couch in the common room. we got a couple of mattresses out and I climbed up on the couch, jumped, flipped, landed right on my face, damn near snapped my back in half.

 

[franznietzsche]

I wish my siblings and i had found jumping off the couch to be more thrilling... but no, we opted to jump out our second story window instead. We thought we were so cool. Sometimes we'd jump out with plastic grocery bags and use them as parachutes. It was so much fun. Mum and dad hated it though, we'd get grounded and be like... heh so what, and jump out the window. The worst part was probably when mum planted her rose bush underneath the window. It wasn't quite as comortable... but it sure didn't stop us.

Actually my older sister and i, when she was like 17 and i was like 12, we thought we should try jumping out the window like we did when we were little, we realized that we were much crazier back then... I didn't remember it hurting my legs so bad...

you weighed less back then, less force, less strain on your joints. I used to do the same thing off of the tallest jungle gyms i could find. Jumping from what might have been ten feet, into soft sand or sometimes those soft wood chips. When you're smaller you hit the ground with less force, so its a lot less strain on your body. If i tried jumping off of that now, i wouldn't even think about trying to land on my feet, i'd try to roll on impact, like paratroopers, to avoid breaking them.