My Treehouse Tower, Completed

The tower has been done for months now. In fact, it only took Eddy and his boys just over three weeks to finish it from start to completion back in May of this year.


Even after all this time I still love to look at it, my tower, to admire its simple soaring elegance. From every aspect I do this. I stare at it from directly below, from the side where it passes up through mango branches thick with leaves, from down the street where its cone-topped perch floats just above the treetops, from within it while climbing up its five flights, and finally, while standing on the top platform and looking directly down at the top of the banana tree planted directly in the middle of the tower’s concrete foundation. For me, this towering structure, painted dark green to blend in with its cover of fruit tree leaves, is a wonderful work of art, something to behold.

That's Eddy, the architect, the overseer, the builder, wearing the bandana over his mouth as he arc welds one of the hundreds of individual components into place. Notice the mangoes dangling in the foreground.

That's Eddy's youngest standing next to the platform framework. I asked him to stand by it to provide some perspective as to its size. As you can see, its not exactly tiny.

From beneath, this is the same platform frame already welded onto the very top awaiting for the myriad grill work pieces to be welded in place.

Half the flooring is installed in this shot, but, once I stood on it I knew it wouldn't do. There was almost a full inch between each round bar, way too much space for comfort. I told Eddy to have the lads add another bar between each existing one. After that, it was perfect.

Here, Eddy shows with a piece of paper how the roof would be shaped from prepainted aluminum sheeting. The idea being to form it into the shape of a traditional Filipino Bahay Kubo roof, which is usually made from thatched palm.

Shaped round bar is used here to stiffen the cone roof and to provide rigid attach points to the vertical supports. Aluminum tabs, attached with plenty of rivets every foot or so, secure the stiffening bar to the roof.

The riveted tabs are visible here. "Welding Man," crouching in the center of the roof, is attaching the stiffening bar with his trusty arc welder.

The finished roof being man-handled to the top of the tower using rope and muscle. It was not an easy procedure due to its extreme weight, the wind, and interfering tree branches.

In by inch, the roof was pulled upwards. Eddy was very much in charge while this took place because of the dangers involved. That roof, if it fell, would have come down like a killer knife-like sail because of its aerodynamic shape and sharp edges. Not only that, a drop would have meant buying all the materials all over again since it would have likely been crushed and made unusable.

Success. I thought the hard part was going to be over once we had it up there, but no, it took another 30 minutes of sweaty all-hands work getting the heavy ungainly piece into place on the verticals.

Eddy holds the roof in place while his son welds it on. I never heard him raise his voice in anger or impatience while instructing his workers in what to do, no matter how hairy it got. He is the epitome of a leader.

Three of my girls enjoying the view and each other's company at the top shortly after the tower was completed.

A neat thing about being on the platform is the feeling of being suspended in air. This is just before the final coat of green paint went on. As I've been saying, its a handcrafted work of lovely art.

One thing I really love about my tower is that it does not intrude visually. I have met other denizens of my subdivision living just down the street who have never even noticed the existence of my towering treehouse.

To see more photos of the tower build, from start to finish, check out my Flickr site here. Play the slideshow for the best look and also check out the details version for all the commentary and titles. Comments are encourage. (Ok Ed, enjoy...)

Christmas Explosion

We just came in from watching Angeles City bring in Christmas with a bang, or more like a series of them, plus a bunch of mighty booms and a lot of pipsqueak pops.

From way up on the tower platform in my backyard, Janine, my 12 year old step daughter, asked me if we did it like this back in the States. Of course I told her no.

“Where I come from, Christmas is all about “Silent Night, Holy Night”, not “Boom Bang Pow Night.”

I suppose though that I can sort of see the rationale behind all the fireworks here on Christmas Eve—celebrating the birth of Jesus is as good a reason as any to pull out the stops and shoot off scads of heavyweight bottlerockets and Roman candles. Regardless, it’s pretty cool being above the trees and roof tops and getting a 360 degree bird’s eye view of all the celebratory action.

In fact, we didn’t know which way to look for the best displays. From that height there’s a lot of area to try to cover visually; so, Divine, Janine, Jenalyn and I scanned our own sectors and called out whenever a particularly good series of rocket propelled pyrotechnics were being set off. It’s a good system and will serve us well next week when the REAL show happens on New Year’s Eve.

Last year, I sat and stewed in my room trying to watch TV, and mostly just cursed the intrusive explosions going off all around the house for most of an hour leading up to midnight and for a good half hour and more afterwards. I admit that it’s much better being outside and feeling a part of it all. Some might say, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” but I’m not exactly joining in, just observing it from 50 feet up.

It was nice, almost comes close to being a thrill, especially when some of the big boomer bottlerockets explode just a few feet away from our perch. Deliciously scary, and FUN!

Death and the VA

I was in Las Vegas when I received word by way of an email that my dad was dead. Actually, it was two emails. The first one was from my oldest daughter, the one married to Barry, a US Army Blackhawk pilot currently stationed in Iraq. She simply wrote, “Daddy, call grandma right away!” I knew then that my father was either gone or very close to it. Before calling my mom I opened the other email from my brother: “Dad breathed his last this morning at …”

Even now, many weeks later, I still feel nothing. One of my buddies is a psychiatrist and I mentioned to him that I have no sadness. In fact, that I feel nothing at all—neutral. His style of analysis is partially to use his own life experiences in helping his patient’s to cope and understand. When his dad died he also felt little, or so he says. In other words, if it happened to him that way, well then, it must be normal, whatever “normal” means. And just between friends, I think both he and I are both “football bats”—we be screwed up, ebonically speaking.

I started writing this not long after I returned from across the Pacific, but I stopped after finishing just the two paragraphs above. Other than the arthritis in my fingers and the tendonitis in my wrists, the real reason is something else—the current bane (and purpose) of my life.

I feel like two people: the person I show to others, the guy who seems to have it fairly together—that’s the fellow that speaks pleasantries and nods hello when he’s forced to leave the sanctuary of home to meet with and help local fellow veterans down at the office. But truthfully, that doesn’t feel like the real me; that’s a fake, an imposter. The real “hidden me” lurks in a dark place, lost in a sea of stormy nothingness. Actually it is a sea of something, and that roiling sea consists of anger, no, gusts of outright visceral rage, and all of it mostly directed at the local VA.

My voluntary (unpaid) involvement with service officering, which entails my assisting fellow veterans and dependents in trying to deal with a very difficult to deal with Veterans Administration, is in fact killing me, exactly in the way that cigarettes leisurely kill smokers, or the way high blood pressure silently kills the sufferers of that deadly condition. In fact, just writing that word, “VA,” causes my blood to boil, my teeth to grind, and my thoughts to seethe.

I’ve noticed too that my failed marriage, the resultant separation from my girls, and the death of my father and others, that all of it seems to make the continuous problems I encounter with the VA, and the schmucks in there intent on screwing over my people, all the more worse.

I was trying to explain the depth and cause of my VA-induced fury to someone the other day. You see, it occurs to me that, unlike most, I never get to get to achieve closure. The irony is that most of the people I’ve assisted to an endpoint rarely continue to harbor any ill will towards the very institution that gave them so much trouble over the months, and even years, of their quest for the benefits due them. Not so with me, since there’s always a fresh line of vets in the midst of getting their dose of “VA hard time” before hopefully eventually getting their claims awarded to them, albeit at times many years after filing the initial claim.

My predecessor, and the guy who originally asked me to help him do this stuff, used to growl at me as he listened to me complain loudly and continuously against the barrage of boneheaded decisions coming out of Manila, “Spear, calm down. You can only do what you can do. When you leave the office, don’t take it home with you.” If only I was put together that way, but I’m not. Most nights I hardly sleep at all, as my mind squirms with the latest bit of obtuse VA meanness.

So, my father died, and instead of pondering his passing, all I can think of is my vitriol for this merciless government bureaucracy. Is that healthy? One of the other ironies of this very real detestation is that my own personal dealings with the VA have been fairly good. I was eventually awarded compensation for all the conditions I claimed (after about 18 months of challenging and fighting) and I now receive all the meds I need to keep my body in one piece, although, I seem to be losing the battle to keep my mind together (perhaps because of my volunteer work with vets—my cross to bear, as my mom calls such things). So, I’m not angry for me, I’m mad because of what I see being done to others. I want it to stop, but I’m mostly powerless against this non-empathetic heartless machine. After all, nothing breeds despair more than helplessness

On the other hand, perhaps it’s good. While my heart and mind are filled with spite and hostility, and yes Mr. S, with disdain, maybe it’s keeping me from falling into a pit of isolated gloomy sadness, where I think I might otherwise be, for I’m pretty certain that once I stop doing this stuff that I will rarely find cause to leave the confines of my compound. Even now, I hate leaving it and can’t wait to pass back through the gate.

PS: Whenever I post about the VA, as soon as I do so I feel uneasy about it, as if I should keep these unhappy thoughts just between me and the veterans to whom I normally vent my spleen. Notice though that I don’t include specifics on active cases. I’m not supposed to do that while still doing my service officering. Anyway, my counterpart is the one who speaks nicey-nicey. I don’t like what they are doing down there and I obviously don’t care if they know it. As for my counterpart, he’s not any happier with the way many of the things are done at VARO Manila, but he keeps his really foul thoughts between the two of us. Poor guy—he still believes he can make them change their ways. I just don’t see it ever happening. Institutionalized unresponsiveness, I believe purposeful, predicated on advancing careers based on building reputations purely on budgetary mindfulness. I don’t know how else to explain it—it’s all about the money. If I was in charge of it all, if the shoe was on the other foot, I certainly wouldn’t allow the things I see from my perspective. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

More thoughts and observations on the death of my dad in the works… I’ll try to stay away from venting on the VA for a while, or try to. I mean, what good does it do?

Northwest Flight 71

Finally, I have returned…

Not going into detail about the what or the where of the last two or so months, let’s just say transition has been the overarching theme—with two d’s being primary: death and divorce.

So, there I was… I’m flying home once again on Northwest Flight 71, the first leg of which takes off from Detroit, heads northwest over Alaska and onwards to Nagoya. Last year we got four hours into that first segment only to be informed well west of the Hudson Bay over the central Canadian wilderness that an engine had to be shut down and thus we’d have to do a 180 back to Detroit to change over to a more flyable jumbo jet, presuming that one was available.

With that excruciating experience in mind I naturally began to figure at what point we’d be more than half way to Japan so that a similar semi-catastrophic system malfunction would not mean returning to Detroit. I knew that point-of-no-return would be somewhere west of Anchorage.

Just as I began to relax, my uneasy forebodings gradually assuaged, the head attendant made an announcement straight out of a movie script, “Is there a doctor onboard?” She went on to explain that a very ill passenger required assistance.

‘Damn!’ I screamed inside the confines of my mind. I turned to the guy to my right and frustratingly told him, “We’re going to land in Anchorage. It’s a sure bet; mark my words.”

A surprising (and reassuring) thing was the high number of medical personnel on the aircraft; almost all of them fellow coach passengers. Wow, I always thought doctors had money enough to fly at least business class. I counted more than six different people, all apparently claiming to be doctors, and each in turn spoke to and examined the distressed old woman.

Soon, another announcement: “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we must divert into Anchorage since our sick passenger requires immediate medical care.”

Dropping my head and then turning to the guy next to me I muttered resignedly, “I told you so.” Even so, I had been desperately hoping against hope that I would be wrong.

I sighed, ‘Here we go again…’ I knew I should have felt more concern for a fellow human being’s physical plight; but, being the selfish jerk that I apparently am, all I could think of was, ‘Why did this person get on this plane feeling so poorly in the first place!’

I loved the attendant running service in our section, the very aft part of coach. In his 40s, he looked to be Latino American, and from his George Lopez sounding accent, he was probably from Texas or some other southwestern state. From before the beginning of the flight he made it known that he would not consider taking any guff from self-absorbed passengers. I heard him raise his voice with one such traveler a few rows behind me over the proper stowage of carry-on luggage. ‘Yeah! Give him hell,’ I nodded, mentally approving.

During the in-flight medical crisis this Latino attendant, reminding me of a tough drill sergeant, continually had to harshly remind my fellow voyagers to keep the aisles clear, “Please sit down,” he berated them, “YOU are getting in our WAY!” It was great listening to him assert his prickly authority. There ARE times when folks from this part of the world NEED that kind of personal reinforcement since behavior based on civil cooperation does not always win out over individual wishes. Each time he got in someone’s case I felt huge vicarious satisfaction.

I gulped down my disappointment and frustration at yet another unsatisfactory Northwest flight experience and accepted the idea that this interminable flight was about to become even more so.

At Anchorage the aircraft literally dropped onto the runway with engines immediately squalling alarmingly into reverse. The aircraft fishtailed some three or four times before being tamed back into straight forward motion. It felt like a carrier landing looks like. I have flown into that airport before and don’t remember it as being exceptionally short so that it would require that kind of extreme landing, although giving the flight crew some minimum benefit of the doubt I thought maybe there had been some cross winds messing with them. I didn’t really believe that though, because those kinds of winds can usually be felt on approach and nothing of the sort was apparent.

I remarked to my seat mate: ‘My God that was one of the worst landings in a 747 I’ve ever experienced! I hope they didn’t blow any tires!’

I thought with no little concern, ‘That’s all we need now, to have to change some tires too!’

It seemed to take forever to get the sick person off the plane. It also took a lot of time for the baggage handlers to find and retrieve luggage all while thousands of gallons of jet fuel were replaced given that we’d had to dump an equal amount into the air over the wilds of Alaska to reach a safe landing weight.

Well over an hour later the captain came on again, “Well folks, we are refueled and our ill passenger has been evacuated, but I’m sorry to have to tell you that I’ve just been informed that another passenger is apparently very ill. Emergency medical personnel have been called to come back, after which we will continue our flight. Thank you for your continued patience…”

An audible groan from the 400 plus passengers, including my own explosive curse, filled the passenger compartment. That second sick person caused us to be on the ground almost another additional hour. So much for the original overly optimistic estimate that it would take a mere 45 minutes to divert into Anchorage. TWO passengers on the same plane requiring medical evacuation, what are the chances of that happening!

I’d made a new buddy, Anthony, a guy across the aisle from me. A young looking 44 year old Filipino lawyer, I told him jokingly, “Man, if I got sick on a flight like this there’s no way I’d EVER tell anyone. I’d rather die quietly here in my seat than have to pay what it’s going to cost those evacuees in medical and ambulance billing. Just put a blanket over my corpse and bury me when we land!” He laughed.

Eight hours after takeoff from Anchorage we landed with an even greater jouncing thud at Nagoya. It was so jarring that I felt it painfully in my back and neck as the vertebrae compressed. “Son of a BITCH!”

No more benefit of the doubt. Now I was truly mad. Not only did we practically crash land, the aircraft fish-tailed like crazy at least 6 or 7 times before the crew got it dampened out. It was so violent that we could hear the tires below us screech and skid as we gripped armrests for our own stability. Some of us clenched our teeth while others around me whimpered out their concerns. Hell, I used to fishtail like that purposely on the icy roads of Michigan, but to feel that kind of extreme motion from a monstrous 747 is disquieting to say the least.

“These guys SUCK!” I practically yelled across to my new lawyer friend. If we land in Manila like that then it’s the airplane, if its smooth into Manila then it’s the incompetent schmucks up on that flight deck. We’ll have a whole new crew going into Manila—Thank God!”

Upsetting landings aside, after two hours on the ground at Nagoya it was almost time to reboard the plane. I’ve learned when flying with Filipinos that it’s best to act like them, at least when it comes to boarding. These folks do not cotton to the concept of making orderly lines and typically, 30 minutes before first boarding call, they will begin to mass in a gaggle in front of the gate. Screw it, I do it now too; or at least I do when I have substantial carry-on luggage, which I always do anymore to avoid at flight’s end having to wait in the mass of humanity at the luggage carousel. It isn’t that big a deal, but I like to make sure upon boarding that I have first crack at the overhead bins, just to make sure. I did this successfully at both the Detroit and Nagoya gates, positioning myself as close as possible to the gate entrance and then inching forward into whatever space opportunistically presents itself in the mob. I think of it as a game and try to enjoy it with a gamesmen’s attitude. Doing it like that, it’s not so bad.

Don’t get me wrong. Filipinos who do this are not unruly or rude as they mass up at the boarding gate. In fact, they cheerfully socialize as they gently fight for position. Americans in similar circumstances are not always so sweet-tempered with some tending to surliness; so I can appreciate this about Filipino air travelers. They are what they are, they do what they do.

I had to laugh at the Japanese Northwest agents though as they made their silly demands that everyone should PREASE form two rines. None of us in the general boarding gaggle even looked at them as we continued to stand patiently in our quietly disobliging throng. I made a joke out of their silly attempt to bring Japanese order to a group of mostly Filipinos, turning to my fellow “mob mates” behind me I smilingly made my own mocking announcement, “Okay folks, please form a line directly behind ME! And thank you for YOUR cooperation.” Some even smiled.

Not quite four hours after taking off from Nagoya we made the long gentle approach into Manila. I nudged my lawyer pal as the plane floated and flared down to a soft touch down—the moment of contact almost imperceptible. I told him knowingly: “See, it WAS that first aircrew! Now THAT was a beautiful landing.” In consensual agreement my fellow passengers applauded sarcastically, the old Bronx cheer, all realizing that we finally had some REAL pilots up front. It was the first time I’ve seen passengers applaud just because their pilots were able to land without thrashing everyone in their seats.

At the Manila terminal, four hours after our original estimated arrival time, pulling along my heavy, bursting-at-the-seams, wheeled, carry-on suitcase, I deftly sailed past as many of my deplaned fellow travelers as I could, managing to be just number four in an immigration line despite my extremely rearward seat position. But just my miserable luck, the guy in front of me decided to ask a bunch of stupid questions about extending his tourist visa. I silently implored, ‘COME ON DUDE! MOVE IT ALREADY!’

At last, my turn; I gave the tired looking immigration lady an obligatory pleasantry, “Hello maam, sorry for the late arrival. How are you doing tonight, I mean morning?”

With a vacant smile she nodded pleasantly, electronically scanned my permanent resident card and quickly stamped my passport. Zoom, I was out of there.

Passing through the rows of luggage carrousels I could see a couple hundred people already congregated thickly around the one on the far left. It was not turning thus far and not one bag had yet to be delivered.

‘Heh heh! …Suckers!’ I thought, hurriedly proceeding to an unoccupied customs agent standing at a station below a sign declaring: “Nothing to Declare.”

The short skinny bald customs official began to wave me through having just done so with about ten of the aircrew and attendants from my flight, and then stopped me when he realized that I was not with them. “Do you have anything to declare sir?” he asked. Biting back sarcasm I respectfully said instead, “No sir!”

He took my customs declaration, initialed it and waved me on. Bing bang boom.

Looking much exhausted after such a long and unexpected wait, my driver and gal were waiting for me at the bottom of the ramp outside. Plopping into the rear seat of the sedan with a wince due to my aching back, I tried to nap for the last two hours of my odyssey after having left my starting point in Saginaw, Michigan almost 30 hours before.

Dawn’s light was already visible when the driver pulled up in front of my gate. As I said at the beginning of this piece:

I’m home, …at last! Yawn….

VII. Tree House, 3/5ths Up

The boys were on a roll. “The factory” was turning out steps like gang busters while Eddy and his welding prodigy worked feverishly (it seemed) to get the third ramp of stairs in place. As usual, being at the office during the morning, I didn’t have to watch them as they did it, stretching arms out while welding a support in place all while balancing on an inch wide horizontal on one leg.


Hopping off my scooter I could see the third flight and loved how I high up into the trees it sat. Eagerly, I almost jogged over to see it from beneath. Eddy was standing at the base with arms crossed high on his chest as he tends to do while watching his lads at work, but as I approached he walked over to meet me.


“Hey there Santa!” I greeted him joyously.


Not getting the joke, nonetheless he smiled uncertainly asking “What?”


“Eddy, you MUST be Santa, because every day I come home to see what’s going on around my tree and it feels exactly like Christmas morning.”


“Ahhh!” he laughed, liking the comparison to Saint Nick.



He declared, “If you want, you can go up to the third platform. The railing is only half supported so be very careful. We are high enough now to see the mountains behind Clark! You're going to love it. It's beautiful.”


I had never seen Eddy so animated. His excitement was catching hold of me.



“Really? Can I go up now?” and up I went without waiting for an answer.


Sure enough, for the first time since moving into the subdivision I could see the Zombales Mountains to the west. It was amazing. Suddenly my world had expanded to scores of miles beyond the inside of my little walled yard.


Elated, I declared “Only two more flight to go Eddy. I can’t wait!” I stood there for a good ten minutes, although feeling a bit shaky, more than 30 feet up, torn between the feelings of precariousness and excitement, staring at my newly extended horizons while feeling decidedly unsteady at the lack of support around me.


“I’ll get out of the way now, so you guys can finish this railing.”


Even on the ground I was still drunk from the freedom of being high up in my trees.


‘This was REALLY a GOOD idea!’