finally the parents made us fill it in because it was too big - they didn't want a big ass hole in their yard.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936749)

Viva la Revolucion!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936883)

I used to take it out almost every weekend and imagine the mighty and unchallenged rule I could exert over the rest of the neighborhood if only I had a saw and the ability to use a hammer and nails.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936440)

I built treehouses and forts, but huts? Whats that for, when playing pretend games involving natives?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#2054402)

My dream was disturbed when I found out I had accidently stumbled onto White Oak Air Force Base. It took two weeks before they finally let me call a lawyer.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936534)

I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and have accusations of Jack Handey plagiarism bandied around when the true culprit is a simple astrological extra-sensory channeling.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328758)

Here, try to find a similar one: http://www.cco.net/~jpete/deepthou.htm

Edit: If that academic discipline committee couldn't prove plagiarism, you damn well can't.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328712)

the flapjacks didn't look too shabby either, even if the flag was ALWAYS under the butter pat

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936637)

I hereby grant you permission to eat grilled cheese. This overrides any doctor's orders you may have received to the contrary.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936664)

i like the new campbell's selects stuff. the tomato with mushroom ravioli is awesome

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936751)

my only complaint about the wolfgang puck is that it is so expensive. it's good, though. it was on sale last night so i bought $20 worth, or so.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936760)

Watch, I'll prove it to you. Put on a nice dress and ask your fiancee if you look fat.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936726)

i'm not "fat", but I am trying to lose weight.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936732)

Don't do it, Royale.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936755)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936826)

we don't get snow

it would take a lot of frickin bamboo to be able to construct a fort

we did pitch a tent in the backyard, though, if that counts.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936662)

Hell, you're in the wetlands. If you dig a couple of well-planned channels, you can create a fully-functional moat. That's the kind of thing we Northerners could only dream of.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936675)

I wish I were cool like you when I was a kid.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936697)

Were you the human periscope?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936715)

"Yeah, yeah I do," he'll say.

"Well, not for nothin, but Ian Dobbs was on my basketball team that year, and, well, he and Bo Stevenson were *awfully* interested in where we hid the draw bridge."

"Were they?", he'll ask, realizing only now how vulnerable he was for a few weeks back in the prime of our childhood.

"They were."

"Not that it really matters, but, well...did you, ummm..."

"Pete," I'd say, as I placed my hand on his shoulder in a masculine way, but a way that still conveyed a deeper understandings than mere boyhood childhoods normally provided for, "it's okay, I know what you're getting at. And, no, I didn't."

His eyes would gloss over a little bit. The act, though decades old, finally now meaning something to him that conjured up the essence of what it means to be a lost little kid who finds something to cling to in the mundane. "You could have....i mean, we all thought you would. Man, I just want to say...I mean, I guess I want to tell you -"

"I know Pete. I know." And then we'd both look look off to the horizon, as if we were given one last chance to catch a glimpse of ourselves while still young and innocent, but couldn't quite put it all into focus. Without a word, we'd go our separate ways, never to see each other again.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936915)

To voice our discontent, we threw dead fish, vinegar, milk and bologna into one of these "tubes" so it would bake in the hot summer sun. To add our little exclamation point to it all, we decided to poop in it too.

I should have written my PS about this.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936818)

or at least a couple phone numbers

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1936850)

If you mean the inevitable danger that kids from a nearby neighborhood would try to displace you from your lovely fort, that's half the fun. ;)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1937102)

Anyway, I never quite got the robots up and running, so I had to join a co-op effort with the McMasterson twins and build the fort manually. Don't get me wrong, it was still a solid fort: It had a perimeter trench system, a secret escape hatch, and slingshots built right into the tree. I just wish the robots had worked out- those things can build some great forts.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1937134)

EDIT: as i reread it, this is a bit of a gem. I mean, MacMasterson twins!? I don't think another surname in this country would fit so well for the purposes of this yarn. Bravo.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1937139)

No, for better or for worse, I was designing robots more on the "henchman" model than the "robot army" model.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#1937224)

.

Throughout my trek past Drexel University, the usual suspects attempted to ensnare me in their gauntlet of overturned shopping cart barricades, subway vents booby trapped with ragamuffins wrapped in piss stained blankets, outstretched arms pleading for handouts, the aimless shifters, whose sole purpose is to make you so uncomfortable that you cross to the other side of the street, only to run into shrewd umbrella salesmen, marketing their 400% marked up wares only on dreary days (which is everyday in Philadelphia), or perhaps the perpetually lost couple from Glassborough, N.J. with the broken down car who “just need a twenty for the bus fare home.” This got me thinking. How exactly do all these misfits survive the bitterly cold West Philly nights? True, during reading period when I study at Biddle Law Library until the wee hours of the morning, on my walk home there are a few stragglers, slumped against one another on cardboard mattress in the recessed alcove of Drexel’s Engineering’s entranceway. But the vast majority of the bums vanish each night only to seemingly reappear to pick pockets, hawk wares, and otherwise generally blemish the city by day. Where do they all go?

* * *

Determined to solve this mystery, I set up an observatory perch on the roof of the LeBow College of Business. Nestled high in the bosom of Drexel’s crown jewel, I could easily survey a wide swath of the area. All day long, through the sunset, and into the evening, I watched. Watched as hapless students were harangued, even accosted. I peered South, and the Class of 1923 ice-skating rink beckoned to me. To the North, I was granted a commanding view of 30th Street Station, and a not-nearly-as-commanding view of the Art Museum, now partially obscured by Dechert’s Cira Tower. My Westward view out towards Silverman Hall was breathtaking bathed in the glow of the evening sunset. I peered East over the Market, Walnut and Chestnut street bridges and beyond.

.

From my ground view walking home it had always appeared to me that the bums were situated randomly. And if they were deployed in any system, it was a disorganized, haphazard turf war system governed by territorial pissings and a complex pecking order no law student not on Law Review could hope to comprehend. Now, from my bird’s eye view, I began to understand. These was no rag-a-tag vagabonds. Rather, I was observing a highly organized and ruthless efficient homeless Mafia! Each bum was strategically arranged according to a complex formula based on a pattern of peak traffic street corners, high volume Wawa convenience stores, Sovereign bank ATMs, and cleverly obstructed sidewalks that tapered into the perfect point from which to launch into a pitch. And it worked! One-in-fucking-three pedestrians actually stopped to engage in banter with at least one of the two-dozen bums under my surveillance. One in seven opened their Burberry purses to give them some money. The bums could have been toll collectors—all day long they harvested the unwary Ivy-leaguers. As one Dunkin’ Donuts cup filled with bills and quarters, it was whisked away by an associate and an empty collection cup replaced it. The bums even had organized free time. When not begging, they took rest breaks, during which they acted out, slept, ate, did drugs, and performed all bodily functions, often in the paths of those who would pass through on business, shop, dine or attend class. By eleven o’clock, the steady stream of center city refugees died to a trickle. The bums ignored the last passers by, intent as they were on counting the day’s take. After gathering their bounties, the guild slowly migrated South and West. It was then that I seized the opportunity to follow them to what no doubt would be a fantastic den of thieves.

* * *

I tracked the guild as they cut through Drexel University, and tacked around Penn’s campus. They were met by two dusty white minivans which awaited them. As they sped off, I hailed a cab and gave instructions to chase. We wended our way through the city, arriving at what I would later know to be 4504-06 Kingsessing Ave. The vans made a sharp turn and pulled through a security gate. I quickly recognized it as the MOVE compound, which had been featured in a recent story by the Metro. I ordered the cabbie to drive another half-block past and then let me off. I stiffed him and ignored his protests, knowing he wouldn’t dare follow me. I footed it back to the compound and came upon an incredible sight. A supreme urban fort, contained within a sprawling, grand stone twin West Philadelphia home. Led by the dangerous felon, Ramona Africa, the fort had already survived two deadly standoffs with police in the past year, and the were obviously preparing for the inevitable to happen again. Just as the gate was closing, I rolled underneath, Indiana Jones style, negating the necessity of scaling the barbwire tipped fence circling the property. I paused to admire the organization’s handiwork. Inside I saw a pile of pallets neatly stacked, ready to manufacture into window boards. Some of the boards had shotgun sized holes carefully drilled through the center. Sacks of provisions were strewn about.

.

MOVE was damaged by several majors setbacks over the years. In the early 1980’s their first fort was flooded by high powered fire hoses, which ruined their provisions stored in the cellar, and caused them to lose a reverse hostage situation in which the sect held themselves hostage and threatened to remain locked in until the city cleared them of all back property taxes. Needless to say, losing their entire stock of soft pretzels and mustard in the flood hurt, and the first fort fell soon after. In 1985, MOVE’s second Osage street fort, which had been holding out against the Philadelphia police for 17 consecutive days, finally succumbed to a 37.5 lb C4 bomb supplied by the FBI, but dropped by Mayor Goode himself out of a News 24 chopper. It took them over a decade and a half, but MOVE reassembled and was now building a third fort designed to withstand flooding and bombing. Thus far, it had proven itself – MOVE had fended off each one of Mayor Streets preliminary probes (every Philadelphia Mayor tests MOVE’s strength by deploying a small armed force soon after taking office).

* * *

Crouched in the shadow outside the three-car-garage, steel panels bearing the Cira Tower imprint gleamed in the dark. Armor plating designed to protect Dechert’s new office tower from a 9/11-like terrorist strike, the MOVE group had appropriated the building supplies and somehow attached them to the stone mansion’s walls. The rigged up system certainly appeared capable of preventing the recurrence of another fire-bombing escapade. Looking out towards the razor sharp chain link fence, I noticed a series of sluices resembling irrigation ditches snaking around the perimeter of the property. High volume automatic water pumps connected the cellar to the sluices; at a moment’s notice they could be deployed to pump water out of the basement as fast as a fire truck could hose it in.

.

I heard van doors slide open and occupants disembark. The doors shut closed. All was silent. I made my way past the vans poking into the garage. An infra-red laser beam sprouted out of my chest. The garage lights flickered on. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed an auto-cam swerve, searching intently. The game was up. I barely began investigating the fort and I already tripped an electronic sensor. The surprisingly high tech device which caught me soon summoned a gaggle of surprisingly low-tech guards. Out stormed a troupe of rail thin beggars clutching broom-stick staffs in their bony hands. The Sentinels grasped me, hauling me inside. I whirled through an armory room stocked with all manner of weaponry ranging from basic slingshots and daisy BB-guns all the way up to sawed off shotguns and assault rifles. Whether engaging in a friendly feud with the teenage neighborhood gang, fending off a police stakeout, or raiding a rival drug warlord, there were weapons of varying degrees of strength and utility. A flight of stairs began, but the stairs ended halfway up. We turned instead into a long passageway connected the armory to a to an inner sanctum with a domed ceiling large enough for all the fort’s occupants to gather under at once. I glanced about and noticed the room was furnished with broad work desks. Blueprint designs for the continuing construction of the fort were strewn about. The Sentinels jerked me towards the center of the room and forced me up a ladder into an upper chamber. In most forts, the dungeons are located as deep as possible. Apparently this fort was the opposite, with the prisoners guarded up high. To my surprise, I was brought before their leader, an obese black woman who glared fiercely.

“Press the button, press the button,” commanded their leader.

The floor opened up beneath me and I shot down a slick chute. In a matter of seconds I was flying through the air, barely clearing the chain link fence, and thrown into an adjacent vacant lot. It was sheer madness. Only then did I recognize the point of it all. Masquerading under an anarchistic philosophy, the entire MOVE group were really just children trapped in adults’ bodies taking the childhood dream of building the ultimate fort one step to far. And they were bankrolling it all through their extensive Drexel/Penn begging operations.

Like the fearsome groping jelly hand lurking in the upper levels in The Legend of Zelda that dragged link to the beginning of the labyrinth, my life had spared my life, but at the cost of eviction from their fort. As I stumbled back through the city blocks towards Penn’s campus, tears streaked my face. I knew that I would never set foot in their fort again.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#2053835)

Of course, you must remember that membership in my forts required the completion of a timed obstacle course as well as a knowledge of self defense as it was explained to us in some karate book we got at the library by Mas Oyama.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#2056032)

Are you applying for next year somewhere?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328477)

The thing that's making the decision harder is that for some very random and extremely lucky reason, a cornerstone of my academic research caught some interest from some "movers and shakers" in my hopeful field and now it looks like my chances at my dream PhD programs have jumped up accordingly.

I keep waiting for some mountaintop epiphany to come to me out here, but I doubt it'll come and i'll have to make a calculated, rational decision sometime soon. The one thing that is for certain is I won't be applying to LS or doctoral programs this cycle. If I do either, it'll be next cycle, which might be extra nice since maybe the time gap between the two LSAT exams will be such that my first score will no longer be considered and only my higher score will remain. That would be nice.

Et tu? Shit panning out as planned or at least hoped?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328518)

I avoided the dropout wave and am still trucking along in school. Drop me a line if you're in Philly or NY and want to grab a beer.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328560)

When I'm not in the library, I'm probably on one of the mountains getting as much boarding as possible under my belt. I believe I actually have an abstract submitted for a conference that is supposed to take place at Penn, though it may be that I learned of it through the UPenn listserv (bar none the best call for papers database out there for those grad students looking to present and publish) and am associating it with Penn for that reason, but I could have sworn it was at Penn. If I get a spot, I'll definitely let you know and we can shoot the shit, possibly commandeer a boat from the crew team and take this fort shit naval.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328621)

Even better, we can steal two boats and create a catamaran fort in the middle of the Delaware River. We'll secede from the Union and create our own sovereign state out in the wide open seas between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, just like George Washington did in his famous Delaware crossing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328659)

EDIT: you can be the dood with his one leg up on the bow of the boat looking all majestic...i don't like standing up in small boats.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328727)

But don't compromise. Go to HYSC or bust for teaching.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=124466&forum_id=2#4328790)