I used to love to make forts, inside or outside. Of course mine were much more inspired than this kid's rather pedestrian attempt. For one, he's not utilizing all the materials at his disposal, mainly blankets and other furniture. Mine would have intricate tunnels with little nooks and crannies. I think one even had a sunken living room with a woodburning stove. If I knew this kid, I'd offer him some pointers, but alas, he's just some random shmoe that popped up during a Google image search. He'll never benefit from my years of experience. How unfortunate.And what the fuck is a "cranny"? You never hear cranny used by itself. It's always preceded by nook. Nook you'll hear by itself from time to time, but not cranny. What makes it so damn special, huh?
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When I was a kid we lived across the street from some woods that had a great open field we called “the ball field” because that is where the kids would play baseball and football. Anyway, in the outfield, where the trees began, four trees fell during a violent storm. Except they fell in a square, leaving an open area about 15 feet square. One tree fell over the other and that was the entrance to our “fort” and you had to crawl under to enter. We camped out in there, fought the evil Germans and Japanese or the Indians from there. We had our stick rifles leaning against the wall (tree) ever vigilant for attacks. I even took a girl there once. She slapped me. I kissed her again and she ran off crying. I did, too, when my mother found out. I would love to give this to my grandson, J-Man. But he is more into computers. Too bad.
Cranny sounds a little dirty to me.
Our house in Ohio used to back up on the forest preserve, so we had the entire woods at our disposal. We build amazing forts with thatched roofs and secret underground escape routes. It wouldn't surprise me if some of them were still there as we used to carry buckets of clay from the creek and use it for grout.
Coffeypot- Welcome! Reminds me of my childhood - except Iwas way to much of a dork to ever take a girl to one of my forts, let alone try to kiss her.
Lulu- At the end of my block was the Illinois Prairie Path. We ruled that little patch of suburban nature and had numerous forts there. It sounds like you were much more thorough with your construction than we ever were.
I agree with lulu - cranny should be a dirty word.
The best forts by far were snow forts. After big snow storms, the big Chicago snow plowers would push the snow into a huge pile at the end of the block and we'd dig tunnels, build walls and turrets. Man, those were the days.
Sofa cushion forts are all very well and good, but nothin beats the giant box the new refrigerator came in.
After watching The Great Escape, my brother and I attempted to dig a tunnel under our garage. We dug down about seven feet, and got scared that we would become trapped if we dug under the garage.
We ended up covering the hole with a piece of plywood and covered the plywood with some dirt.
To this day, there may be a seven foot hole in the back yard of 338 N Highland in Elmhurst...
Cherry- Very true. Snow forts rock!
Vikki- Good call. I seem to remember sleeping out in our yard in a converted refridgerator box at one point.
Flann- It's my new mission.
Frank- Next time I'm in town, we'll go check.
My sister and I and our friends spent millions of hours contructing what we called leaf houses. Not quite forts, but we raked leaves into little rows to create the floorplan of a house. And then we pretended to live there, so I guess it's really more like house only with leaves.
My forts usually involved blankets, the kitchen table and chairs, and my imagination would conjure up Star Wars while I was in my fort... like maybe it wasn't a fort, but a star destroyer or something.
I really didn't even know a lot about Star Wars then, except that Princess Leia was the girl, so that's who I was in my fort.
Forts! Snow-forts! My brothers and I used construct the most kick-ass forts in Maine.
The best was when we'd sleep in them...then destroy them in the morning when we woke up.
Good times.
I once constructed a fort with a forced air supported roof. The only real problem with it is that it was freezing cold in there from having to run a large fan on high to get the roof to go up. but it was fun.
I'm with Flan and Viki...refridgerator boxes. You could make them EXACTLY as you wanted..
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