When I was young, I used to skip school and go to Gonzales Beach. We’d spend all afternoon dragging driftwood around pits we dug in the sand. Corner posts went down deep holes, then were surrounded in rocks. Roofs were made from weathered chunks of milled wood that likely fell off a transport ship somewhere years ago. On occasion, we’d build two stories, which would routinely collapse on us.
Those forts, as shitty as they were, always felt like castles once they were done. As the evening brushed violet strokes on the horizon, we’d build a fire and fill our eyes with smoke, then head home in the dark, full of slivers and covered in sand. Those are nice memories, and I often think how wonderful it would be to make another one now that I’m older. Of course, it would be a much better fort, but I don’t think the magic would be the same—unless I could build what this guy built. Using nothing but a machete and a bowl, he fashions a house that might be better than your house. Or mine.
See more from him on his Youtube channel, Tube Unique Wilderness.
