A civil war breaks out amid the comforts of home
It was quite cold outside so my brother and I decided to engage in an all-out war in the warmth of our Limekiln Lake home.
It was not the sort of fighting one would typically think brothers would be involved in, but more of our own reenactment of what occurred in WWI Somme trenches.
Down the long hallway (or Hellway, which I am sure is how our cat and dog would have described it) we constructed a series of forts.
These forts were made from kitchen chairs, blankets and pillows and set up in barricade-fashion.
We hunted through our collective assortment of small toys and made piles of items that could be used as projectiles or bombs.
Among the selected items were rubber dinosaurs, plastic blocks, stuffed animals, Legos, toy soldiers, plastic bowling pins and random parts of games.
I suppose if our parents had taken a closer look at some of the things we had gathered they would have outlawed them under some sort of Adirondack Geneva Convention clause.
Once we each had gathered enough ammunition, we hunkered down behind the walls of our respective trenches in preparation of calling off the armistice.
We didn’t wear any safety gear such as eye protection or padding.
However, I figured since I was four years older than my brother I would even the playing field by tossing my bombs left-handed.
The battle began with a total bombardment, each of us hoping to destroy our opponent’s will to continue from the get-go.
With super balls careening off the walls and the air thick with toys, my dog Mutt decided it was no longer safe to be positioned under the kitchen table.
She quickly burst through my barricade and completely exposed me to my brother who took full advantage of the situation.
With one of my ears winged pretty good by a rubber shark-accompanied by four other direct hits-my brother was victorious in taking me down.
Amid the ruckus we heard a car pull into the driveway.
We both knew our mother would soon appear at the front door loaded down with groceries.
We immediately scrambled to clear everything out of the hallway and return the house to good order. (When you are up to no good, it is always key to hide your evidence as quickly as possible.)
By the time our mother came through the door, just enough of a mess remained for her to suspect we were in full mischief mode.
But she never said a word as we helped her carry those stuffed brown grocery bags to the kitchen. My brother and I had many such skirmishes as we were growing up Adirondack, but we never had a real fight in our days together.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Big Moose Lake.ltmitch3rdny@aol.com
