While 14 Todd Hollow Road may just appear to be a street address to most, to me it was the location of my initiation into the world of the outdoorsman, the naturalist, and the writer. I was raised from infancy at that house, and was heart broken when I moved from there as a preteen. To give you a little background, the house was built, by hand, by my mother’s grandfather without blue prints, outside advise, and, most likely, proper permits. As a result, the house was imbued with a character that is largely absent from modern day homes which contributed to its playground-like qualities as a child. The basement, built by hand from the jack-hammered ledge it was carved out of, was home to a partitioned storage unit which later became my “shop”. The two upstairs bedrooms (one my sister’s, the other mine) were connected by the closets, permitting back entry…something that routinely gave rise to sibling antics. The property sported an immense four bay garage that rivaled the house in size, and was my father’s and my retreat. The piece de resistance, however, was the property. The house was situated on a large 2 acre plot of land that was abutted by a large 3 acre pond, and a 14 acre tract of woodlands that we were permitted free and unhindered access to. It was host to countless hours of play and adventure, and will always fondly dominate my memories of childhood.
Its difficult to catalog your thoughts as a young boy, so I’ve thrown any attempts at recounting the following tales in chronological order out the window. So, in that case, let’s start with the pond. The pond was home to countless creepy crawlies, and its dark detritus littered waters presented it with a very mysterious sense of eeriness. The water was of questionable quality, which resulted in many talking-to’s when being caught by my mother as I slurped greedily from the cold waters of the brook that flowed from it behind our house. Amongst the inhabitants of our pond, was a legion of snakes so numerous, that even the former Crocodile Hunter would have a mighty large task on his hands. For my mother who hates snakes more than any person I have ever met, this presented a unique challenge. Walking anywhere in the yard surrounding our home was a task fraught with constant hyper-awareness. If you ever met my mother and don’t think she can sprint on a Olympic level, then you’re dead wrong.
As our house was pretty secluded, playing with other neighborhood children was rare, so I spent allot of time “playing” (more accurately, fighting) with my sister. I did share a brief friendship with another little boy in the neighborhood, but it was cut short when I was banned from his house after setting their lawn on fire with a bottle rocket launched from his bedroom window. Anyhow, while I had my basement “shop”, my sister’s play area consisted of a yellow jacket infested shed. While larger, and considerably more opulent that my dirt floored “shop”, I was quite content with my digs. These spaces ended up serving as bases from which many a war was launched, after violations of the demarcating line running down the middle of the lawn were made. I remember one such instance in which (this was totally by accident, seriously), my sister was clothes-lined while riding her bike by a home made “traffic light” that I had strung across the driveway. I’ve also run her over with my bike, gotten a RC car tire wound in her hair, but in my defense, she did drop a 12 pound rock on the back of my head at one point.
Not all of the torments lobbed at my sister were physical, however. Even at a young age, I had a flair for the dramatic and, as such, had woven stories so horrendously terrifying, that my sister’s ventures into the 14 acres of woods surrounding our home were made with extreme fear. Can anyone honestly tell me they wouldn’t be scared shitless if they ran into a marauding bigfoot or the icy grip of a grim reaper, both of which inhabited the depths of the property? The house wasn’t free from horror, either, though. A carefully constructed rig involving fishing line and a floating fan power cord served to quickly convince her that our warm little nest was in fact plagued by ghosts.
While inflicting grief on one another was a past time treasured by my sister and I, nothing would top the mutual grief we both endured late one winter. Our front yard was home to a glittering jewel of an above ground pool where we wiled away hours upon hours of our summer days. It was the same pool that I had jumped in feet first wearing flippers and, upended by the act, was thrashing about madly screaming “I’m drowning! I’M DROWNING!” while being laughed at by parents and uncle. I was later informed it’s not really drowning if you can still scream. Anyways, there had been a particularly warm spell this one fateful winter that began to melt the water frozen within the bowels of the pool. This served to create fractures in the ice, a large and very sharp piece of which ended up spearing through the side of the pool, dumping its innards all over the front lawn. My sister and I stood with tears streaming down our cheeks as we watched the final trickles of summer aquatic fun pulse from our dying friend.
Unfortunately, however, all good things must come to an end. My parents began to realize that their property value was beginning to decline, and felt that it was time for a needed paradigm change to a more child-friendly neighborhood. It wasn’t the National Guard battalion plugging down our road to their training ground located at its end, or even the contingent of roving child-mauling dogs that was bringing down property values, however. It was Ally McBeal. Okay, well maybe not she herself, but she had something to do with it. So one house over from ours stood one of the dumpiest most run down homes I’ve ever come to see. Every neighborhood has “that house”, but in this case our neighborhood had it in spades. The house was supported by a large timber leaned against one side to prevent the structure from toppling over after a leaky roof had served to rot out a good portion of the supporting framework. Toppling over would have actually been the best thing for it, but apparently its proud owner didn’t see it that way. The owner I speak of is Gary Flockhart. Now at this point you may be asking yourself who Gary Flockhart is. Gary Flockhart is the unemployed owner of the condemned house that blighted our neighborhood. More importantly, he is Calista Flockhart’s brother, the actress who portrayed Ally McBeal in the television sitcom bearing the same name. In a tabloid article detailing the whole affair (and thusly casting much unwanted attention on our neighborhood), it was explained that Ally, whoops, sorry, Calista had made numerous attempts to help her brother out, but had failed when funds were diverted to the purchase of illicit substances. My sister and I didn’t really get it at the time, and thought our parents were trying to stymie our happiness, but in our later years we began to see the prudence of, what was, a tough decision.
However, the absurdity of the events that played out down the street from us never left a blemish on the fond memories I have, and always will have of that place. Oh and by the way, the Flockhart family was later evicted and that piece of shit knocked to the ground.
a cliff’s edge by a twenty-three year old man. These aren’t just kids out there screwing around in the woods…many of them are adults looking for a few seconds of hollow sophomoric entertainment.
