When I was about five years old, my grandpa—Papa, as I call him (because I’m from the South)—and I would take afternoon trips to a piece of land where he spent his own childhood.

On these trips, we always sat in our favorite spot: a little clearing atop a hill, with a view of the woods sprawling below. One sunny afternoon, as the breeze rustled through the leaves, Papa had a spark of inspiration. He asked, “What if I built a cabin right here, where we sit?” I’m sure I was absolutely thrilled with the idea—but then he followed up with another question: “What should we name it?”

Now, I don’t know if you know much about folks from the South, but we love to give our places and possessions names. It gives them that special charm—that feeling of being complete. So, naturally, choosing a name for this new little getaway was a big deal.

The name we eventually settled on was The Spooky Hideout. How we came up with that, I honestly can’t remember. But Papa has always sworn up and down that I thought of it myself, in my own little five-year-old brain.

So, after we settled on the name, Papa set out to build the cabin. Well—sort of.

It began with an old camper hooked up to a generator. Then he added a large covered porch off the front. But that still wasn’t enough to win over my grandmother (a.k.a. Nana). An old camper with a porch just didn’t cut it—no proper Southern woman was about to spend any real time in the woods without proper facilities.

Eventually, Papa gave in and built a real cabin. And not just any cabin—this one had a big brick fireplace, central heat and air, the whole deal. It was truly spectacular.

Over the years, that cabin became the heart of so many gatherings and memories. We celebrated family Christmases, hunted Easter eggs, hosted church fun days, and had more fish fries and deer meat cookouts than I can count. It served as our deer camp, sitting right in the middle of our hundred or so acres of hunting land. Later on, it even became my crash pad in my early twenties, during a time when I was trying to get back on my feet.

Tragically, after fifteen years of incredible memories, the cabin burned down. A nearby controlled burn escaped its fire lines and spread, eventually igniting the cabin. I was living there at the time and lost a lot of my belongings—but since I wasn’t home and made it out unharmed, I chose to see that as a silver lining.

And now, we’ve come to the part of the story where we currently find ourselves. My wife and I have built our dream home, and we’re raising our family in the very spot where that beloved cabin once stood. I look forward to creating a lifetime’s worth of new memories here—on this land, in this home—and carrying on the legacy of The Spooky Hideout.