A pair of bare feet dangling from the giant red maple gave away my daughter's whereabouts when it came time to leave grandma's and go home to North Carolina.
"Carly Grace," I shouted across the front yard, "come down out of that tree. We've got to go."
My daughter is too good a spy to reveal her position so easily. The feet belonged to one of her Tennessee cousins.
"I know you're up there, Carly," I said, walking across the dry September grass. "I can see John David's feet."
"Ah, dad," she groaned, "we just need to stay up here a little longer."
As I arrived at the base of that massive old member of our extended family and looked up, there was only one thing to do. I climbed up to see for myself what had kept my daughter, her cousins and half the kids from the adjoining neighborhood so completely entertained for most of the Labor Day weekend.
The sight of a 46-year-old man pulling himself up, ever so gingerly, limb by limb, was a surprise attack. The kids couldn't react quickly enough to mount a protest — although the intrusion clearly annoyed them.
"Wow," I said after boldly going where no adult had gone before. "This is way cool!"
"Yeah," they said, half smiling, "it is cool."
What's not evident from the ground is how the old maple has formed a natural treehouse. It's like the palm of a huge hand with extra-long fingers that curve out, then reach straight up to stand sentinel against the enemy.
The bark had been worn smooth by little feet and hands. Sticks and stones were arranged as potential bombs to be dropped on imaginary ground troops.
Every branch, it was revealed to me, was a battle station, every woodpecker hole a crucial control button.
Not one to overextend my uninvited stay, I cautiously retreated. And as I exited the inner sanctum of that old tree, I did so with a lot less worry about the effect TV and video games are having on today's youth.
The experience reminded me of the long-ago trees, forts and clubhouses I've known: The big magnolia in the West Albemarle Baptist churchyard; the secretly hollowed center of a hedge behind the scout hut; the lean-to we built at the pond in the old Johnson City neighborhood.
"Oh, to be a kid again," I thought as we left for home.
Later, cruising down I-77, I started doing something that made me realize I haven't given up completely.
I've done it for years.
Along most interstate highways, there are sizable wooded portions of median, large enough that a person traveling by motorcycle could conceivably pull off and wait for a break in traffic, then ride right into the woods to camp for the night.
"There would be a good spot," I say to myself. "Right up that little hill and into those woods."
I daydream of taking a cheap trip by utilizing the potential for free lodging on these public lands. I see myself relaxing with a book at my anonymous campsite while four lanes of civilization speed past at 70 mph in both directions.
It wouldn't be the quietest refuge in the world, but peaceful nonetheless: I could sit there as long as I wanted, and no one would ever walk over and tell me it's time to go home.
Just thinking about it helps me feel like maybe I'm not all of 46 years old. Not yet.
