The Fort

"The Fort." Not much to look at right? Well, apparently, it used to be pretty sweet for a few young boys I know.

Here is a picture of a picture of The Fort in its prime. Those are Terry's cousins! Jason on top, left is Jackson, then Terry is inside, then Justin and finally Jamie on the right. The four J's are all siblings. And it was those boys that primarily made The Fort from an old tipped over outhouse on Terry's grandfather's ranch. They added to it over time (even a second floor and a door with a hinge) and it was of the utmost secretive nature. They had covert boy meetings in there.

Shari stood in for Jamie for this recreation photo. Notice what Terry is holding. That is the same can of Raid from the original photo. They found lots of good stuff in there...

He's cute. Then and now.

Here is the fabled Jar of Girlfriends. Terry didn't have much to do with this b/c he was too young, but his older cousins put pictures of girls in there. They were mostly models from the Sears catalog. They also found a wallet with more pictures in it.

Here's the back of The Fort.

Terry's holding a "weapon," Raid can and a mallet. The Weapon, one of many, was used by all the boys to defend their girlfriends from enemies - tall weeds. They whacked them to the ground. No idea what the Raid can was for. The mallet was used to call to order the boys' meetings.

Inside was pretty messy but there was tons of stuff still in there from like 25 years ago.

Terry and Justin were brave enough to go in. Of course they needed a Tetanus shot when they got out, but yeah, they were okay. Just joking about the shot. It was a ton of fun to learn about this magical place from Terry's youth.

Justin's wife Lori, a photographer, took more photos and posted them on facebook. Here is the link, though I'm not sure if it will work.