Do you remember those apple trees? Those gnarly apple trees?
There was the easy one. Just around the corner from the clubhouse. The room we called the clubhouse that was attached to the back corner of the barn. The room with the dirt floor and the door that you had to push hard to open. The room with shelves of boxes of treasures that didn’t seem to have been touched in centuries. The clubhouse with a window looking out into the Jone’s yard until Bunka and his cousin built that stone fireplace just outside. The easy tree was just around the corner from there.
And then there was the row of the others. Were there two or three in that row? I remember three just outside the shed on the backside of the barn where we got wood for making swords. Just uphill from the Sycamore that Nani and Bunka planted somewhere near the tetherball pole hole that we were never able to find again. Those were the trees that Ben and Burt climbed.
But oh, the easy one… Its low branches bent out so gracefully over the lawn, and it was a breeze to climb. With only a slight pang of (unregretted) inferiority and not a moment of hesitation, I remember preferring it to the harder ones every time, because you didn’t have to jump so far to get down. And because that tree whispered to me every time I walked by.
You remember them, I know you do. You just mentioned them as something that is woven into the you who you are. Me, too. Let’s go climb them, shall we?