Tree Climbing, Dirt Roads and Unreliable Superheroes

A short, true story about a childhood adventure with my twin brother, invisible ninjas and a superhero who apparently has bigger fish to fry.

Tree climbing was just about our favorite summer pastime. That is, aside from kite flying, fort building and ramping our worn out yellow Huffy bikes on homemade ramps. We didn’t have much growing up, my brother and I. But we did have lots of dirt, lots of sticks and lots of imagination.

Our little, wood-sided cottage home was nestled amongst a crowd of birch, pine and cottonwoods only 50 miles or so from the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Friends were hard to find so far out in the country, so I was thankful to have a twin brother. The woods were our playground, and our playground was full of great climbing trees.

Our favorite climbing tree was a beautiful white and black spotted birch, right at the end of our dirt driveway. Its upper branches provided a great vantage point to spy the advancing armies of ninjas, aliens and/or dinosaurs across the empty, overgrown horse pasture. It also, as we discovered one day, provided a perfect place for getting stuck.

My brother had reached new heights on our lookout tower that day. I’m sure the view was great, but the branch he was sprawled across was not so great. As the wind blew and he began to sway, our current game was put on hold. The advancing ninjas set up camp just west of the pasture’s barbed wire fence and it was time to call out to a greater power….

“SUPERMAAAAAN!!” My brother began yelling through the leaves of his rickety lookout.
“That’s a great idea!” I thought. It was the early 80s, and we had just seen Superman save Lois from falling from a bridge, so surely he would come to our aid. “SUUUUPERMAAAAN!!” I joined him at the top of my lungs… But he wasn’t coming. “He’s probably in New York or something.” I assured my brother. “Keep calling for him and I’ll go tell mom. “I’m sure he’ll show up. He just has a long way to fly.”

I ran down the bumpy dirt road and interrupted mom’s bread making with the perilous news. She brushed the flour off of her humble, blue denim skirt and followed me out to the end of the drive. But my twin best friend wasn’t there! Superman came!... But where did he take my brother? Excited that my favorite flying hero actually heard our call, but sad that he had taken my brother, the ninja army and I hung our heads in sorrow and headed toward home.

“Hey! I made it down!” My doppelgänger called from behind the tree. Entirely unphased by the treacherous treetop adventure, he hopped and skipped over to the old dirt pile (aka, dirt grenade munitions site).

"Hey you're safe!" I said, relieved at seeing him on the ground, but angry at what used to be my favorite caped crusader. Mom laughed and returned to her backwoods bakery. The man of steel failed us. "But hey, my brother is safe." ... “Next time I’m calling for Batman.”