I was the lookout for the club, a position I liked since I got to occupy a post by the only window in the loft of the abandoned barn we used for a club house.

Secret organizations have secret agendas, and we had ours. I share it now risking the curses I once called down on myself should I ever break our code of silence.

We need people who will take us in and then let us in on their secret dreams and plans. Call it what you will--we all need an X Club.

I've been a member of only one secret organization in my life. It happened when I was about six or seven-years-old, and we called it the X Club.

The name came from my older brother Craig who started the group and thus got to pick both its name and its leader: himself. Presiding over no more than 10 members, Craig was president of the X Club and my friend Jack Swatzell was vice president, egalitarian sounding titles I know, but unelected just the same. Craig and Jack were, however, benevolent despots and I don't ever remember resenting their rule (unless it was when they chose me to represent the enemy in our war games, but I get ahead of myself).

I was the lookout for the club, a position I liked since I got to occupy a post by the only window in the loft of the abandoned barn we used for a club house. Although the structure seemed remote and hidden, it rested in a pasture only a few hundred yards from our house on the outskirts of town, a convenient location for a quick trip home for mom's sandwiches and cookies which fueled our exploits.

Secret organizations have secret agendas, and we had ours. I share it now risking the curses I once called down on myself should I ever break our code of silence.

The X Club stood for the Good Will Club. Our magic marker Xes on our T-shirts and club flag may have made us look like young pirates, yet, in reality, we were Robin Hood's merry men, camouflaged advocates of the poor and downtrodden. To be honest, I don't remember ever taking part in a canned food drive or March of Dimes, but I guess we were ready should we be called.

What I do remember is our preparations for war. I guess the Robin Hoods of this world always have their Sheriffs of Nottingham, and we believed an attack on our fortress was imminent. So we spent most of our time developing elaborate strategies for defense--things such as nailing the barn door closed and constructing a rope ladder that could let us in through the loft window and then be pulled in after us.

War preparations also meant stockpiling ammunition, so we made regular trips to a nearby construction site for buckets of dirt clods that could be hurled down from above, dissuading even the most ardent attackers. I know this for a fact, since I was most often chosen to play the enemy in our practice drills, and a dirt clod hurts even if you're wearing your dad's World War II army helmet.

Actually, the X Club never came under attack, never even was threatened; instead it just ceased to exist about my 3rd year in elementary school. We members remained friends through high school, and, I guess, that's what mattered most anyway.

And, come to think of it, that's still what matters. We don't have to be part of a formal organization (and certainly not a secret one) to do so, but we all need close friends. Midlifers, like children, need to belong somewhere, to have a post, to share a vision. We need comrades in arms to resist the Nottinghams in life. We need people who will take us in and then let us in on their secret dreams and plans. Call it what you will--we all need an X Club.