Childhood Antics

I've always loved a good adventure. When I was a kid, I much preferred involving myself in some thrilling exploit over staying inside to read a book. And I always managed to get some poor old friend to be my partner in crime. I remember some pretty crazy stories. One time, I somehow talked my neighbor friend into clearing out the inside of a giant hedge in an unsuspecting elderly neighbor's front yard to create a hideout for ourselves! Do you reckon we asked for permission? It started out with snapping a few carfully chosen twigs to make the space we had squeezed our bodies into a little roomier. Soon, we were finding that our hands weren't strong enough to break the size branches we were going after! So, I went back home, got some loppers, and set back to work with my friend. Whenever we would crop a branch, we'd push it out of the hedge to make more room. It got to the point where we had a sizeable pile of branches sitting on the side of the hedge (which was along the street, by the way, for all to see - I don't know how we thought we were going to get away with this!). Well, I wasn't going to just leave the pile of branches there, so I decided to return home again for a garbage can, which we proceeded to fill up. Soon after I had come back to our hideout with the trash can, my Dad found us and told us to "close up shop." I'm still amazed to this day that he wasn't angry with us! Was he too baffled by the randomness of it all? Was he impressed with our industry? Did we strangely remind him of himself when he was a kid? All I have to say is that only the Lord knows how much of that hedge would still be left if my Dad had never found us! As we walked away, the 15 ft. high "wall" now had some visible holes, which for the next year or so, wouldn't let us forget what we had done each time we would pass by.