In late June of 1974 I re-enlisted in the Army, left behind my three-year "civilian tour" in Phoenix and returned to more familiar ground at Fort Ord, CA.  I have already posted a  couple of articles about that move and the challenges that I, and my family, faced so I won't belabor that aspect of it.  It wasn't all cracked up to be what it was.  But in spite of some serious setbacks and challenges, it was a great relief to be back in uniform and into a stable environment again.  
We moved into a set of government quarters in one of the oldest neighborhoods on Fort Ord.  The house was a concrete blockhouse, a small three-bedroom house.  The quarters were listed as "sub-standard"...which meant they only charged us 75% of our Quarters Allowance to live there.  It was just right for our little family:  MamaCharlie, me, HBW and Humbordt...the boys were four and two years old, respectively.  We had only recently discovered that Toothache was on the way.  The house had a tendency to be dampish inside; mold would grow behind headboards and dressers and there were some other inconveniences, but HBW would start Kindergarten in the fall and the school playground was just ten yards up the hill in our backyard and we could sit on the front porch (about a five foot square of concrete) and look down 4th Army Road and see Monterey Bay.  We would sit out there and watch the fog form up over the bay and start its march up the hill;  it would reach our porch in a few minutes.  At times it was so thick we would not be able to see the house across the street.  We were a short distance (I would say "walking distance", but as Steven Wright says,  "Everything is walking distance...if you have enough time") from the PX, Commissary, and the Hospital.  Monterey was just outside the gate...it was by far the best circumstances our little family had ever had.  We loved it.  
Setting the stage, here.  In the back yard were several tall pine trees which the post's groundspeople felt were too tall. So they "topped" them, that is, cut off the top ten to fifteen feet of the tree.  This left a flat stump...at the top of the tree, about twenty-five feet off the ground.  The trees were old pines; their branches were thick and came all the way to the ground, forming perfect places for little boys to have a "fort" and climb and play.  
It was in this house that we discovered that our two-year-old (he actually turned three shortly after we moved in there) had an amazing talent for climbing.  On one evening I came out of the living room into the hall to find myself face to face with him...he had "chimney-pressed" himself up the door jamb until his head hit the top .  He laughed so hard at the look on my face that he almost slipped back down.
It was a Saturday afternoon;  I was in the kitchen, when I heard my little three-year old Humbordt yelling, "Daaaaddeeeee...Daaaaaddeeee!"  over and over.  I ran outside to the rescue, not sure what danger there might be.  I couldn't see him anywhere.  "Daaaaddeeeee".  I looked up.  He was sitting on the top of the pine tree, the cut-off stump made a great seat.  He had made it to the top but couldn't face the trip back down.  I am no fan of heights, especially not a flimsy-looking pine tree that was two and a half stories tall.  But he was my kid.  A few minutes later, exhausted, covered with cuts and scratches and pine pitch, I reached my little climber and got him in my arms.  He clung to me like a...a...scared kid...and we made it back down safely.  We sat on the back porch (about a three-foot concrete slab), picking pine tar off of us and talking about how we are not going to climb the pines anymore.  
Humbordt went back to play and I went in to shower and change clothes.  Pine pitch sticks to everything and is nearly impossible to get off...and the needle-scratches burn and itch like mad.  MamaCharlie and I were chuckling about Humbordt's adventure and amazing talent when..."Daaaddeee...Daaaddeeeee".  I went outside to find him back at the top of the pine tree.  I looked at my talented little guy up a tree...looked at my hands and arms, covered with cuts and scratches...I started to go back in the house.  I stopped.  Thought about it for a minute.  I went back to the tree and decided that if he could get up there, he could get down.  He just needed a little encouragement.  So I spent a good fifteen minutes explaining to him what he had to do to get back down.  He didn't want to do it;  he was scared.  I finally got him to give it a try.  He was not even a third of the way down when he slipped, slid, lost his grip...and I stood there helplessly watching my little boy fall at least fifteen feet down through the branches of that tree, bouncing on and ricocheting off of every one on the way.  He came running out from under the tree about the same time that I got to it;  I couldn't tell from his face if he was still scared, mad, or hurt...until he started laughing.  We sat on the back porch, pulling pine pitch out of his clothes and hair, trying to wash off his scrapes and scratches, and talking about how we weren't going to climb the trees anymore. Yeah, right.
You know the protocol of having kids...with the first one you sterilize everything, with the second one you wash things off, and by the time you have four or five, you are lucky if you wipe things on your levis.  It's the same way with trees.  After we had lived there for a couple years, I didn't even go outside when I heard, "Daaadeeee"...I would yell out the kitchen window, "Get down out of that tree...and don't you dare fall".