The Clubhouse....

So in a recent survey I was asked to list one of the funniest moments that I could remember and one phrase always seems to come to mind...."Get the hammer quick!" Any of us who lived in the neighborhood at the time of this event will immediately laugh upon hearing these words. It was during spring break of one year during middle school and none of us were quite old enough for Cancun or Panama. Between our two neighborhoods was an old pig slaughter that was now just a concrete junk yard filled with trash, wood, and railroad ties. These were large, very heavy rectangles of black wood the is laid down, then the track is laid on top of them. Well we decided it would be a great idea if we built a clubhouse for the gang in this area...being it was fool of junk to use, we played there a lot, and it was right in the middle for all involved.

We began on a bright and sunny Monday morning, Roy, Bryson, Greg, Jeff Besser, Jason, and myself. Josh Gregory would join us at a later interval to put finishing touches on the place. So we begin gathering up tools and wood that we need to make the clubhouse and lay a piece of wood down for the floor. We then began to make the walls out of the railroad ties as interior support, and then nail a board on the outside of these for the wall. Well needless to say the railroad ties didn't stack neatly and were fairly heavy. So half of us are holding the railroad ties and the outter piece of wood that will be nailed into the ties. As I can remember myself, Greg, and Jason were holding the ties up and Roy and Bryson supporting the outside wall when we realized that we didn't have the tools nearby. Well Jason takes it upon himself to get the said tools and lets go of the railroad ties and wall.

All I hear are the words get the hammer quick and Jason attempts to sprint across a 5 foot area to get the tools. Next thing we know there's a huge crash as Jason trips and goes flailing into the other wall with wood and tools knocking half of it down upon himself. As this happens the wall is too heavy and we let it fall in which one of the railroad ties hits a board and in a sort of teeter-totter motion sends a brick up into the air. Now mind you this took all of 30 seconds but it was one of those true slow motion moments in life as the brick flies through the air to land on Bryson's foot smooshing his big toe. Bryson screams in pain and grabs Roy, who happened to be closest, and starts pounding on him cause he's in pain. The rest of us are just rolling on the ground at what has just transpired.

After checking on Jason and Bryson who were fine except for some cuts and bruises we laughed for nearly 10 minutes wondering why Jason let go of the wall and tried to run in such a small area to begin with. Eventually we got a pretty badass clubhouse built with a carpeted floor, hidden place for porn, and everything else young boys needed. It was a great way to spend a Spring Break building something with a bunch of friends. However to this day I can still see Jason falling and the brick flying through the air in slow motion and can do nothing but grin.

Cheers!