Hi I’m back! I had written this newsletter 25 weeks in a row and then I just….stopped. There were two reasons for this. First, when I started writing the newsletter I set a goal for how many subscribers / readers I’d have and when I hit that goal I just felt compelled to stop. This basically describes every facet of my life. Set a goal. Meet it. Move on.
Second, we got busy! Work travel has resumed (for my wife, not really me…yet), we had spring break, I started a few backyard projects (more on that below), and things just invaded my writing time. But I’m back and will start writing again.
Also, substack has this podcast thingy feature so I decided to record this newsletter along with what’s written below. No idea if this is something I’ll do again but figured I’d give it a shot.
Ask any American what April 15th represents and they will answer quicker than someone chiming in on Family Feud with an inappropriate answer: April 15th is Tax Day. I think even as a kid I knew three critical immutable dates on the American calendar: Halloween, Christmas, and Tax Day.
My connection to April 15th and its bearing on our country’s overall profit and loss (mostly loss) statement permanently changed in 2010. On that April 15th 12 years ago, my younger brother Andy died from suicide. That he died at an early age wasn’t a huge surprise. He had burned the candle hot at both ends as long as I knew him. His fierce temper was only matched by how easy he laughed. He loved a good time, a good story, and most importantly, wrestling with his daughters. But he always struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. Some years we thought he had it beat. Other years we were reminded it was going to be a lifelong struggle. His struggle ultimately ended in 2010.
After he died, a number of his friends called or texted me to tell me stories about Andy. I learned that Andy had helped set a fire in the field at the front of our neighborhood when he was about 11 years old. I remembered that fire but honestly had no idea who had set it. It was almost 20 years later that I’d find out Andy had a hand it.
I learned that during one drunken escapade, Andy went outside of a bar to move his car across the parking lot and in doing so, accidentally drove the car into the cop car working security that evening. He went to jail that night. I’d never heard that story.
But the story I loved the most is the one about Andy climbing into a treehouse and peeing onto other kids as they climbed up the latter.
When Andy and I were little, we alternated between living in this really lovely neighborhood north of Houston called Memorial Hills and a few apartment complexes not far from there. Memorial Hills was this almost idyllic place to live. It was full of nuclear families very different than our own with moms and dads and brothers and sisters and ditches to play in and a softball field in the front (adjacent to a certain field that would one day catch on fire).
On the street behind us lived a friend who had the most righteous treehouse imaginable. In my almost certainly revisionist memory of this treehouse, it stood 20 feet off the ground, had hardwoods, a minibar, a big screen TV, and endless supplies of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. Most likely it was a simple treehouse in the middle of the backyard with no frills, made by the dad from scrap wood laying around the garage. Even still, it felt like a sanctuary, a place that adults weren’t allowed (or couldn’t fit into), and a place where we could conspire to do misdeeds of some kind. It was like a headquarters.
After Andy died, this friend of ours texted me to pass along his condolences and to ask if I remembered the time Andy peed on a bunch of kids from the treehouse.
“I’m sorry, what?” I half laughed, half questioned.
“Oh yeah, one time Andy was up in the treehouse and we were yelling at him to come down and, well, he opened the door, pulled down his pants, and started peeing on us as we tried to climb up the latter”.
At this point you might think to yourself, no way that happened. No. Way. I mean, who would pee on another human being. From atop a treehouse?!?
Andy would, that’s who. It is perhaps the most on brand thing about him I’d ever heard. This story just added to the mystique of the treehouse. I mean, we plotted and played in there. And my brother had relieved himself from the doorway onto other kids.
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Time to build my own treehouse
I’m not sure if other parents do this, but as soon as I found out my wife and I were having children, I started to make a mental checklist of things I’d want to do with my kids.
✅ Take a monster roadtrip
✅ Fly cross country with them
✅ Make them watch Goonies with me (well, our 3 year old loved it anyway)
Teach them to be nice human beings (still in work)
And build them a treehouse. Check!
I didn’t want to build them a treehouse because I hoped they’d whiz on other kids perched high above the ground (though that would be righteous). I built them one because I remember how much I wanted a dad to build me a treehouse.
I “finished” the girls’ treehouse a few weeks ago. It’s too small for me to really get into, the boards are a bit uneven, it’s not a perfect square, and the bucket / pulley system fills with water when it rains. But it’s a place for them to go have their snacks and escape mom and dad. It’s their place to plot their misdeeds and misadventures. It’s their headquarters. And maybe one day they’ll figure out how to pee off it.
Why I had to build a treehouse for my kids (#26)