I loved playing Army at Toby’s house most of all because his family’s multiple-acre property was loaded with forts, treehouses, little creeks, and sheds that made it seem like it was some kind of backlot set from an old war movie. I would count down the hours, minutes, and seconds until Saturday afternoon almost every week until I would hop in my mom’s Suburban and traverse the windy roads of the foothills of the North Cascades that led up to where Toby’s family lived on a small rustic raspberry farm at the end of a gravel road. My favorite thing to do when I was 11-years-old was playing “Army” at my friend Toby’s house. I need to push the darkness of the one horrifying day of my childhood off of my chest like a bench press or the weight of it is going to eventually slip down and choke me to death. I have never told anyone about this… but it’s time to get something off my chest.
