Dain Bramage ??? 
Posted on 01/05/2022 9:57:03 PM PST by Tench_Coxe
For whatever reason, I was thinking back to my childhood, and my thoughts went to climbing trees in the back yard.
That exhilaration of being 100 feet give or take above the ground in a wind that bent the top with me clinging to it while looking beyond my immediate neighborhood was, in retrospect, formative.
In later years, my parents admitted to being alarmed when they finally saw where my shouts of 'hello' were coming from, and decided "say nothing, just wave back, he'll be down eventually for dinner".
I think we've lost something....
We used to do the same thing. See how far we could go.
Way to turn on the warm nostalgia!
Spent many summer days in trees back in the 60’s. Tree houses, tarzan swings, reading and just looking. Absolute hours.
Shinny up and climb branches like a monkey.
Our kids have lost something profound.
Climbing trees is for the young. Unless it has some nice branches that are low to the ground and there aren’t any bugs or caterpillar tents. Then it’s okay.
Did the same in a brittle pine tree no less with a neighbor kid. Makes me nauseous thinking about it now. It’s amazing more of us aren’t crippled or dead from things we do.
Been there, done that...lol
I was a huge tomboy and had a special tree I would sit in and read books. I rigged a pulley/rope from my tree to front porch with a bell on it, so I could “page” my mom if I needed anything. I’d attach a note with a clothes pin. This was way out in central rural Alabama when I was 10-12 y.o. 67 now and that was a lifetime ago...sigh
I had tree climbing adventures.
When I was probably seven, my brother and I climbed a huge fir tree that stood in the middle of a large plowed field. We climbed all the way to the very top, and it was very high. While we were up there, we saw our other brother being chased by the farmer riding his tractor, the miniscule figures of the farmer and the running dog in hot pursuit. We clutched the trunk of the tree and pressed ourselves into it hoping we wouldn't be seen, and he never did look up.
Around that time, there was also a cool tree fort built in the woods about a mile from our house, and the older boys who had built it weren't there all the time, and we would occasionally go there to look. I am guessing from memory it was around 100-150 square feet of platform One day, by myself, I decided to climb up myself. I was not very big or coordinated, and when I managed to climb high enough to get on the large platform It was just a platform, not closed in. But when I tried to climb down, I couldn't. I had overextended myself in my exuberance to get up to the platform, but I simply could not reverse that process to get down. I tried repeatedly, but was unable to do it. As night began to fall, I got desperate and eventually got to the ground without falling, but I had spent hours up there, trapped in that tree fort.
I had one more incident which could have had terrible consequences. I climbed a small tree, and was hanging upside down by my legs about 5-10 feet above the grass, laughing in my upside down state with a friend. Suddenly, the branch snapped, and I plummeted to the ground landing fully on my head and neck. Miraculously, I was relatively unhurt, but I think of that today and the height I fell from, I landed fully on my head and neck and could have easily broken it and been paralyzed. I honestly don't know how I didn't break my neck, but I look back on that and think how different my life might have been but for luck. I guess I have to attribute that to the flexibility and luck of young boys doing stupid things.
Lastly, when I lived in the Philippines, I had a like-minded friend who loved tromping around in the jungle near our house. Of course, we had no compass and no idea how to orient ourselves, but...we thought we knew the trails that I was later told had been made by wild boars, and we followed them on their circuitous routes through the dense jungle. Well, we got completely lost and ended up walking around in circles for hours until we were totally devoid of any notion of where we were. Again, it was starting to get dark, so one of us (probably my buddy Brett Schaffner whose dad was the Administrator of the JEST (Jungle Environmental Survival Training) program at Cubi Point that trained pilots during the Vietnam War on escape and evasion techniques) thought we should climb a tree to look around. We were able to see a road about a half mile away, and made a beeline for it!
I have often had the urge as an adult to climb a tree, but...knowing people as I do, I understand they would view this with extreme disapproval. Plus, I would probably break my neck at my age anyway.
Thing is, I believe tree climbing did something, and was meaningful. I would suggest people watch this excellent short video by Bill Whittle titled:
Three and a Half Feet: The Secret to a High-Flying, Deep-Diving Life of Adventure
This excellent and entertaining video explains the idiocy of this current societal expression of "safety" which is crippling our youth, and why it is important for young kids to be able to explore the edges of the safety envelope of life. Some go to far and are injured or killed. But most don't, and this is that story.
LOL, I tried that in the Philippines, but could never do it. However, my friend did have a spear gun, and we were able to use that to get coconuts down. I had many stupid injuries to my hands trying to get them open...:)
That is, until our Filipino yard boy gave me a machete he made from the leaf springs of some wrecked car! He even put a nice handle on it and wrapped it with multicolored cord. I treasured that, but when we returned stateside, I was not allowed to bring it with me.
My mom always said “God looks after children and fools”. She was right about a lot of other things too!
“Absolutely. How many kids do you see climbing trees? Not many. Tree climbing is “unsafe”. Can’t have that. Who let that kid in the tree out of his protective bubble?”
Very good write up about the new reality rlmorel. Yes, a parent who lets their kids climb trees are taking a risk of being charged with child endangerment nowdays. Nosy busy body “mommy” types would call the authorities and have your kids taken away.
I heard it as Drunkards and Fools and I think kids are included in the latter.
The only time a kid would climb a tree now would be to get better cell service to keep playing their game and checking tiktok videos.
Meaning a society that has not been mindful of the God from whom all good things come, and has increasingly perverted all that God has ordained, and demonizes those who seek to obey Him.
I spake unto thee in thy prosperity; but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from thy youth, that thou obeyedst not my voice. (Jeremiah 22:21)
The next project was building a two-story fort using 4 trees as posts. Floated boards down the river from the farm location we found them. However, we did not get permission to use the boards, which I much later paid the owner (whom i worked for) for (not that he asked me too) after I became an actual Christian. But we did not know how to waste time on video games.
Before we learned better, we tried it with polar trees... not a good idea lol. They snap with not much pressure or bending. Maple trees were OK if they weren’t too big. ItS a wonder we didn’t break our necks
Lol that too. 🤣
Yep, was great fun. We were always very active,, and lived in the woods practically.. never had worried about Lyme disease (though rabies was kinda bad in our area, we are probably lucky we didn’t come across rabid animals)
Now,I worry about falling asleep and falling out of chair... and getting a napping Injury lol
The worst tree climbing related accident that I had as a kid was when I was putting up a rope to use as a swing in a huge cedar tree on the side of the hill. Somehow, I lost my grip while I was tying the rope to the branch and slid down the trunk picking up velocity as I went. The tree wyed at the bottom and when my foot went into the wye it was broken. I ended up with a tennis ball sized lump on top of it. They tried to suck it down with a big syringe. The doctors then said to stay off of it for a couple of months because there wasn’t a lot that could be done for it. After a couple of weeks the swelling went down and I discovered that I could ride my bicycle without it hurting very much.
I had more serious tree related injuries from hopping on horses bareback in the lower pastures. The horses would take off for the barn with me holding onto their manes and whatever else I could grip. I think that they intentionally ran under low branches to knock me off. I hit my head a couple of times and was knocked unconscious. I have no actual recollection of any of those incidents but was reminded of them many times by my parents and brother and sisters.
Dain Bramage ???
Most definitely! That is my excuse these days anyway. But I feel sorry for all the overprotected children of today.
Maple trees were OK if they weren't too big.
That is the same with Alder, once they get very big they do not bend well. But up to about 30 or 40 feet they were usually alright. Most of the ones we did it to were growing in kind of a bog which probably helped to keep them green and flexible. And when we miscalculated and fell from further than what we expected the soft ground was fairly forgiving.
We did things far more dangerous. There was a road across the street from where I lived that went up to the concrete plant. There was a great hill that came down perpendicular to that road. We discovered that the dirt up to the road formed an incredible ramp for jumping our old bicycles. We could literally fly most of the way across the road to the concrete plant reaching altitudes of 10 feet or more. The primary issue was that concrete trucks were often going up and down the road. It is a miracle that none of us were run over.
We also liked to jump off of my grandmother's house into her back yard which was a full two stories down. My cousin saw something that said WWII paratroopers were landing at the same speed as if they had jumped from 13 feet. It turns out that two stories is actually higher than that. But fortunately, the grass was thick, and the ground was a little marshy and our technique which we perfected by jumping from lower heights was pretty good.
In my 20s I found a hang glider at a garage sale and took that up. It was actually much safer than my activities as a child. I still have four hang gliders but my wife has not let me fly them for many years. In my old age I have to stick to my ultralight and general aviation airplanes. We live on a little airport.
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