Adventures in Pukenag

Most of us probably have a treasured memory of a period from our childhood that was akin to magical. It could be characterized by any number of different elements that make it seem so special in retrospect, and it could have been a decade or just an afternoon, but it is a source of never ending joy to revisit that time in the theater of our minds.

During the summer before the Over and Out episode, my best friend and I had really begun developing our sense of collaborative adventure. Neither of us was worth a wad of spit as far as bravery or creativity on our own was concerned, but when we were together we formed a brand new person with creative inertia that would have scared the willies out of my parents had they known. One of our idols was Huckleberry Finn, the carefree, I-can-do-it-myself, disdainer of childish things with an appetite for exploration and avoiding responsibility. We dreamed of a thousand different ways we could emulate this Mark Twain character whose lifestyle seemed completely within our grasp if we could just break it into pieces and work out one part at a time.

It so happened that the year we were most enthralled with our boy Huck, Kathy was living in another town, no more than a few hundred yards from a river. If there is one primary ingredient necessary to becoming a Huck Finn, it is having access to a river. And to make that river even more appealing to us, there was a lovely neglected acre of woods between the river and the quiet neighorhood road that ran past her house. Because Kathy lived in a different town than I did that year, our summer overnights were more along the line of overweeks. My mother was glad to unload a kid from the herd that constantly stampeded through her house, and Kathy's mother was happy to import a friend for her only daughter who languished in a house dominated by boys. So it was a win-win-win-win situation. Both mothers and both daughters were happy with the arrangement, and tended to exploit those opportunities for all they were worth. And to these 9-year-olds, they were worth a lot!

Nearly every waking minute of those overweek days were spent in our special woods, which we delicately dubbed Pukenag. We would swing on vines for hours, perfecting our signature moves that best exhibited our skills at leaping and clinging with style. We bounced with screeching delight on strong flexible branches that would nearly rocket us upward into the forest canopy if we weren't careful. We rearranged the generous supply of fallen limbs endlessly, creating houses, forts, playgrounds, tunnels, monuments, and our favorite: bathrooms. How risque it felt to go to the bathroom outside in plain sight of my friend's house, yet adequately concealed from any eyes that might turn in our direction. This may have been common fare for boys, but girls simply did not do their business in the out of doors if they cared not to be viewed as pigs! And all the while we were swinging, and bouncing, and building, and peeing, that river was right there beckoning to us.

The lure was too strong to resist. From the day we first set foot in Pukenag, it was inevitable that the river would eventually draw us in. From our high perches in our favorite climbing trees we talked out our plan. There was plenty of available lumber right below our feet. All we had to do was figure out how to lash it together so we would have a raft that was river worthy, and then we would float on down to wherever Old Man River took us. Kathy knew that her father owned a hammer, and she was pretty sure she knew where he kept it. The nails she was less certain about, but if there were any they should be with the hammer. And if there weren't any nails we could always tie the tree limbs together with string and/or rubber bands. One way or another we were going to build our Huck Finn raft and push off to the adventure of a lifetime.

It was no easy feat getting those supplies from the house to Pukenag without getting caught. While Kathy's mother was not one to supervise her children's activities too closely, she couldn't be blamed for looking up from her book whenever someone passed through the house, and there was only one way through from the door to the back storage room and back out again. So we had to hide supplies in our pockets or however we could hide them in multiple trips with lame excuses for why we kept returning to the house. We weren't very good liars, so I fully expected that our stories would raise suspicion and lead to a parental investigation. However, the mother on duty was apparently too engrossed in her book at that time to be bothered with an inconvenient inquiry into our childish shenanigans, if indeed she had any suspicions at all. So we secreted a hammer, a few nails, and lots of twine and clothesline to our raft building headquarters. In addition to the handful of new nails that we swiped from her father's tool kit, we also found a jackpot of rusty nails in a pile of abandoned lumber which we were more than happy to pound out and put to good use. They may have been a little bent, but with our hammering skills they would have been bent by the time we were finished with them anyway, so what did it matter.

The next two days were filled with single-minded perseverance. We labored in the summer heat as if our lives depended on the success of this construction project, not realizing that in fact our lives might very well be in jeopardy due to the sheer foolishness of our plan. All we could think about and talk about and dream about was the ride of our lives down the river on our raft, and how proud we would feel when local residents would wave to us from the banks and wish us good luck. Every potentially useful dead limb and discarded 2x4 was scavenged, evaluated, and either incorporated into our vessel or tossed aside where it would not crowd our work space. The only breaks we took from our labor were to pay visits to our fabulous stick-wall outdoor bathroom, or to run to the house and straight back to Pukenag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Kathy's mother could see how deliriously happy we were each time we appeared, and if we were happy she was happy. Happy, happy, happy, everybody was happy!

Our excessive excitement, however, drew the unwanted attention of one of the older brothers. In typical snoopy big brother fashion, he was determined to find out what we were so blasted happy about, and no amount of distractions, whining or threats would shake him off. Ultimately we decided that we would never be able to see our dream come to fruition unless we welcomed The Brother into our plan because he would expose us out of spite if we continued to deny him what he wanted. So we made him promise with a blood oath that he would not tell anyone, and within minutes he was close behind us as we made a mad dash through the cover of brush and fallen limbs to the secret place in the middle of Pukenag where our proud vessel waited for its maiden voyage.

With a mixture of excitement, doubt, envy and condescension The Brother peppered us with annoying questions, but we weren't in the mood to be bothered with irritating queries like, "Can you swim?" We had worked hard and were ready to push off on our clandestine journey with our hobo sticks tied and packed with enough rations to last at least half a day.

Being of reasonably good will in spite of his doubts and his attitude of superiority, The Brother agreed to help us transport our gorgeous raft to the water's edge. Once we made it through the obstacle course that is the floor of an overgrown and undertended miniature scrub forest, we eased ourselves down the bank until one end of our floating cruiser was actually in the water. We watched it bob and sway for a few moments while we drew out our exhilaration with fast shallow breaths in preparation for the moment of launching and boarding. Our strategy was that the raft would be eased all the way into the water, after which we would climb aboard and then The Brother would hand us our hobo sticks with our survival rations safely wrapped in an old handkerchief. The first part worked out exactly as planned. The raft was eased completely into the water. The second part was made a little trickier than anticipated by the fact that the current of the river tried to pull the raft out of our grip before we had a chance to climb on. But with three of us holding tight to some handy sticks poking out one side, we managed to steady it enough that I was able to maneuver my scrawny body onto the surface and lie there on my belly until I calmed my pounding heart and was ready to sit up and make room for my partner in this grand adventure. The part where my partner was supposed to join me never happened, because the moment I put my knee down to shift into a sitting position our glorious raft instantly disassembled itself and I found myself surrounded on every side by murky water. Only then did I have the conscious thought, "I can't swim!" The part where I was dragged out by the condescending Brother who had sense enough to keep his feet on land and grab my leg before I was swept away remains unclear in my memory. Maybe because my lungs were filling with water at that moment, or my mind was filling with fear, or my best friend was screaming, or The Brother was calling me a name I'd rather not recall. Whatever the reason, my recollection of being rescued from sure death is vague. The only thing I'm absolutely sure of is that I was rescued, with the added realization that if The Brother had not obnoxiously wormed his way into our secret plan I probably wouldn't be here writing this blog. I guess that's why parents pray for their kids, which reminds me that I have some grandkids that need praying for right now.