We wrapped Grappelli’s body in a favorite cotton blanket, laid him in a deep enough hole for a German Shepherd-Collie, when I was eight.

Grappelli had nearly died two years before. Not a housedog, he roamed. He wandered in our woods, to homes up the road, then back in time for his evening meal. If he ate well while away, he might not return for a day or two.

On a longer circuit, he reached the four- lane and was struck by a car. An off duty sheriff found him on the shoulder.

Lacking his side arm, the officer took Grappelli to the nearest vet, Jack. He was a family friend, as well as our vet. Jack did his magic. Grappelli’s many broken bones healed. The right front leg hung loose, good only for balance. The other three limbs worked well. Taking for granted both his rescue and Jack’s miraculous medical work, Grappelli did not slow down, lose his good-natured sense of humor or shed his air of independence.

The smell of his warm and tawny fur is one and the same memory as that of his love for us. When he died, I was unprepared. Like my house and my woods, my dog had always been there. Hadn’t he proved himself to be invincible?

In early childhood, I’d buried many small animals: squirrels; birds who had broken their necks trying to fly through our glass-walled house; a frog half eaten by a snake; a rabbit. I was solemn about it, marking each spot with a stone while murmuring appropriate words of recognition and sorrow, but not of grief.

I was too small to dig Grappelli’s grave. The opening in the earth my father dug was for a member of our family. For the first time, I sensed that my parents would die, and so would I. Grappelli’s death broke my heart. His burial site, down the hill from our house, lay at the intersection of lawn and untended forest, visible every time I looked out our hall windows. It was many years before that view ceased to summon grief.

The hill declined to a meadow beside the DuPage River, a body of water that only earned the name “river” in the spring and fall. A giant weeping willow, survivor of floods, stood alone in the meadow.

I was able to climb several feet up into the crotch of the willow, but not much higher. While elevated from the meadow and remote from the house, it wasn’t a fort. Downstream, I could cross a shallow, generally dry gully that paid intermittent tribute to the river. I supposed this ripple in the earth marked the furthest boundary of our neighbor’s land.

I never saw anyone here, though there had been people here in earlier times, operating a limekiln, evidenced by depressions in the river’s bank.

As I grew older, I ventured further, exploring land that rose from the river to form western hills behind the Golden home. Though no one lived on those hills now, I could see where a house had been. A driveway, lined with evergreen trees, pointed to white foundation blocks, scattered red roof tiles. The drive circled back toward a road I couldn’t see. I never dared wander far enough to find it, having no idea who owned the property or what consequences there might be for my trespass. I enjoyed the solitary nature of my explorations, but lacked the courage that comes with a companion.

Circling back, but on the other side of this hill, towards home, I passed the Goldens’ home where I could visit their innumerable animals. I can recall horses, dogs, cats, goats, a skunk, a parrot, and a monkey. I’ve forgotten, his name, but not his attacks on our home. Several times each summer, the Goldens’ monkey escaped his confines. Swinging through the oaks, he made his way up hill, following a trail of tantalizing perfume. Clematis blossoms covered a flagstone pier extending from and supporting our cantilevered house. The intruder found these blossoms irresistible and would eat them all, if there was time before my mother discovered him. Her response was frightening to all who saw or heard it. The monkey was no exception. He left with no good-byes. My mother’s war dance drove him off, but the fright did not erase his memory of the blossoms. He returned whenever he could escape.

My sisters did not wander in the woods but played in the yard and gardens. At first, there was no swing set or play house. My father, an artist, an architect and an industrial designer, drew blueprints for a screen playhouse. Components were built in the wood shop of his firm in the city.

After bringing them home in the company van, he assembled them.

To enter the playhouse, one passed through a screen door two steps above the ground. Centered inside was a small wooden table, suitable for tea parties, with a bench on either side. Each bench could seat one small child, two in a pinch, but our home being well outside a town of 600 people, it wasn’t easy to get more than one playmate at a time anyway. The structure’s delicate wood frame was painted a blue- green reminiscent of a certain cough syrup. This was a girl’s playhouse, not a guy’s fort. One couldn’t even be there in the rain because the “roof,” like the rest of the structure, was screen.

When my sisters outgrew the playhouse, it was given to the Goldens, with the understanding that it would serve as a monkey house. There was a veiled threat behind this gift.

Rather than play in the screen house, I preferred my long hikes exploring the woods and river. When I tired of pushing the boundaries of my known world, I stayed closer to home. I made dams and fords and attempted to make rafts, without success. I saved my allowance and earned extra so I could buy an unsinkable aluminum duck boat. I rowed and hiked up and down the river looking for treasures. Those of the natural world included shells, rocks and skulls. Man made objects that got washed down stream included auto parts, glass bottles and things for which I had no name. The most memorable, and one I still have, was a grindstone.

When away from the river, I built forts out of logs and branches, sometimes digging into the hillside, covering the hollow with a rude roof. What I wanted was a good tree house, a fort, clubhouse, and lookout tower all in one, but I had not the skills to build one. I knew what the view would be like from such a structure because I could climb high in our oaks. There were dangers, but I never fell. Even after an older boy in my Sunday school class fell from a tree, broke his neck, and died, I continued to explore the upper reaches of my woods.

I did not escape unscathed. Shirtless and sweaty, I once slid over poison ivy vine coming down from an enjoyable climb. A sliver of vine bark soon left me covered in blisters from head to toe.

It was difficult for my parents to prevent me from climbing trees. My father designed a triangular tree house for me. The drawing showed black vertical siding, white window frames, and turquoise joists. A few of his friends were enlisted to build it.

Three oaks served as “pilings.” Fourteen feet above ground, three horizontal 2” x 12”s nailed to the trees supported the decking, on which rested the stud walls. The roof tied it all together. Three sides had long screened windows 12 inches high.

A screen door in the wall to the left of the ladder provided entry. The ladder, hinged in the middle, had a rope fastened to the bottom rung. The rope ran up and over a pulley mounted on a beam extending out from the roof. This enabled me to hoist the ladder up just in time to escape either the good guys or the bad guys, as the case might be. It would have kept out other children as well, if there had been any. My only nearby friends were Michael Plant and Douglas Oceola Spurgin, who, at that time, still went by the name Toad. Mike and Toad often did play with me, but, just as often, I was on my own.

I loved my new redoubt. The tree house was fort, clubhouse, and lookout tower all in one. It had a commanding view of the wooded slope leading two hundred yards down to the twisting, generally sluggish, DuPage River.

The tree house provided the major set for play-acting a variety of stories. I can’t recall what else I did there. Was it card games, or checkers? I do recall vividly a field telephone I was able to deploy. The two handsets were made of a hard black material, perhaps Bakelite. They were powered by a set of six-volt dry cells and hundreds of feet of cloth wrapped two-wire cord. The wires connected the tree house to a covered pit in the hillside, dug with a green, folding, short handled army surplus spade. This communications system, connecting my command post to the trenches, was only useful when I had a friend over to play.

I spent as much time as possible in the tree house. I no longer climbed trees. Summers and other vacations I was there nearly every day. The rest of the year, the tree house had to compete with my chores, schoolwork, and violin practice. Once I enrolled in high school, I rarely had time to go there.

Not far down the hill from the tree house was a shed, also designed by my father. We called it the Barn. Its simple design harmonized with the tree house. One of my chores was to feed the animals and clean the shed. On occasion, Chi Chi, the burro, would hold me hostage. While I was removing manure, she would back in. With neck hung low, she would grin at me through her legs. If I made a move towards the Dutch doors, the only egress, she would flick a hoof. I didn’t mind for a while. It was a bit of a game. It was also an excuse to postpone practice and homework. Eventually, my mother would come out and rescue me. The only time I fully appreciated the rescue was a front-end hostage situation. As I fed Chi Chi oats from my hand, she gently bit my thumb. It was not painful, but if I tried to move, she bit harder. When my mother arrived and took stock, she went back in the house. She returned with a very tempting apple, proffered gingerly. I was released immediately.

By the time my sisters were in college, it became my sole responsibility to take care of these animals until it was my turn to leave for college. Then, my parents found other homes for them.

The tree house was left as a relic of my boyhood long after it was last used. Bark grew over and partially covered the ends of each 2” x 12.” The screens rusted away. The paint faded. The bottom half of the ladder was removed, eliminating risk that a wandering child might scale it.

I was just out of college when my parents asked me to take it down. I knocked off the roof and hammered out the sidewalls. Crouching on a few boards, I pried off most of the decking.

From a ladder leaning against each of the oaks in turn, I used a hand saw to cut the 2” x 12’s” until all that remained aloft were the stub ends nailed to the trunks. Those remnants, with a bit of turquoise paint still clinging to them, long served as a marker of a place I had spent much of my childhood.

I gathered the fallen lumber and burned it. The ashes soaked into the ground a few feet from the spot where Grappelli lay buried.

Having decided to become an artist, I rented a storefront in Chicago, 26 miles east. My parents had a studio on the same block. I was asked to take down the Barn. Having grown up on a farm, where nothing was discarded that might have future use, my mother insisted that I clean and save as much lumber as possible. Some was used to build out my parents’ new urban studio. When my father’s health declined, my parents gave up their city studio. I used that lumber in my own, and it was always easy to identify in later applications because of the distinct paints and stains applied during the construction of the Barn.

In December, eight years after the tree house came down, my father died. The following spring, my mother bought a small weeping willow to mark the spot where we would bury his ashes. She asked a neighbor to dig a big enough hole, within sight of the house. Of those few gathered to bury and plant, my mother indicated I should take the first handful of ashes. I dug my fingers into my father’s remains and sifted them into the warm, moist, black earth. I tried to say some words but was not able. We planted the tree. It never thrived, and, like my father, died much too soon.

My mother lived on in those woods another thirty-three years. Then, on the hillside where lay our father’s ashes, my sisters and I, together with our families, dug a hole for those of our mother. Over them, we planted a serviceberry tree, to commemorate.