Monday, June 27, 2011

Siren song of the chain saw

Clinging to early morning slumber, I turned my head toward the voice calling to me and managed a semi-conscious “What?”

“I’m going to walk.” Why was my husband telling me he was going for a walk? He went for a walk most mornings.

“When I get back,” he continued, “we are going to cut down a tree.”

“Who’s cutting down a tree,?” I asked, still not fully awake.

My husband called out the names of two neighbor men. I asked him if the guy next door would be helping and he said, “No, he wanted to, but he has an appointment this morning.”

“Where is the tree you’re going cut down,” I wanted to know.

“The tree that’s blocking the sun from my garden,” my husband said, as he went out the garage door.

Now fully awake, I walked to the window to see if I could figure out which tree he was talking about. I saw two trees, both blue spruce trees, on opposite sides of the garden. One of them had been decorated for a Christmas tree the first year my husband had lived in this house. The other tree was OUR first Christmas tree.... a tree, we had bought and decorated together during our first month of marriage. So which tree was he planning to cut down? After 20 years, I could no longer remember which one was OUR tree and wondered if he did.

As I continued to stare at the trees, sentimentality gave way to a feeling of imminent danger. Both trees had grown far above the lines that extended from the nearby utility poles. I didn’t know if they were power lines or telephone lines, but to me, this looked like a job for professionals.

When my husband returned, I told him that I was concerned about the height of the trees and how the tree might fall after it was cut.

“We’ve got it all figured out,” he told me, excitement somewhat softening the impatience in his voice, as he hurried to get outside to join one neighbor who was already stationed next to the tree with the ladder he had brought over.

Following my husband to the tree, the neighbor greeted us both with a smile, signaling that he was eager to get started on this project. My husband could barely contain his own excitement.

“Guys, I just don’t think you all should be trying to cut down such a tall tree,” I told them. At these words, the neighbor’s smile instantly died. He looked crestfallen. So did my husband.

“We’re going to use ropes,” said my husband, as he tried to reassure me. “We’ve been planning this for days. We know how to do it.”

Just then, our other neighbor arrived with the chain saw.

I said, “Okay guys, I’m going into the house to pray.”

After I went back into the house, I picked up my cell phone and walked to the window to watch the guys. I said a prayer and kept the phone in my hand just in case I needed to call 911.

Taking their places next to the ladder with the ropes, my husband and neighbor, both smiling once again, each kept a steady hand on the ladder, while the neighbor, who had brought the chain saw, climbed the ladder to begin work.

Until now, I had never seen any chain-saw work up close. I was only familiar with the sound, which to me, is one of the most annoying sounds around. But as I watched the neighbor on the ladder move the chain saw back and forth like a wand, I thought, “How graceful is that?”

My husband and the other neighbor both kept their eyes fixed on the guy with the chain saw. Each time he pointed the saw to a branch of the tree, it seemed to be moving through nothing but air, as it smoothly and seemingly effortlessly brought branch after branch sailing toward the ground. As irritating as the sound was, it was fascinating to watch the chain saw in action.

“No wonder most guys want one of these things,” I thought, as I continued to watch.

About this time, I saw our other neighbor, the one who had had an appointment, run into our yard and join the guys at the ladder. In the 20 years we had lived next door to this guy, I had never seen him so dressed up. It must have been a pretty important appointment. But he hadn’t taken the time to change out of his good clothes before joining the guys gathered around the chain saw. I wondered if he had even waited until his wife had fully stopped the car, before scurrying to get in on the action.

Finally, the tree was down and the clean-up was finished. All the guys returned home, and supposedly all the thrills of this event were over. But no...

Throughout the afternoon, whenever the phone rang, my husband would tell each caller about the tree that had been cut down that morning and each time, he seemed to relish the retelling of all the details.

When my husband’s 92-year-old father called and was told about the tree, he seemed to have lots of questions. And my husband was clearly delighted to answer each one. “Yeah...” I heard him telling his father. “It was at least 30 feet tall.”

The call from my husband’s father had come about two months before his passing, during a time when he was home between hospital stays. After my husband got off the phone, I said, “Your dad seemed to really perk up while you were telling him about cutting down that tree.”

“Yeah,” agreed my husband. “He would have liked to have helped us.”

Sometime later, I asked my husband if he knew which tree had been cut down? His tree or OUR tree? It was OUR tree.

“We should have cut ‘em both down,” he said. “The other one is shading the garden, too.”

For some reason, it really didn’t bother me that the tree was gone. That 30-foot monstrosity looked nothing like our first Christmas tree. I had to admit that the yard looked much better with it gone. And we had more yard.

“Next time, you all can cut down those ratty looking hemlocks in the backyard that the hornets build their nests in,” I told my husband. He just stared back blankly at me.

“Hmm...aren’t hemlocks challenging enough?”

B




Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Fourth Rule

What makes for a perfect summer? If anyone had asked me that question at the age of 11, my list would have been pretty short: swimming, playing neighborhood baseball, catching lightening bugs, popsicles of any kind and bicycle riding.

Everything on that list was actually part of my summer enjoyment except for the last one – bicycle riding. I didn’t own a bicycle and had never ridden one. In fact, I didn’t know how to ride a bike. In my neighborhood, few kids did own a bike and those who did were boys. During the summer months, I would wistfully watch them slowly pedaling by, and it just seemed to me that all the sights, sounds and smells of summer could be more fully appreciated during a leisurely bicycle ride.

The greatest obstacle preventing me from this pleasure was not just the fact that I didn’t own a bicycle but that I was forbidden to even be on a bicycle. I grew up in a home where there was a short list of rules to follow: no sassing, come straight home from school, stay out of the neighbors’ houses and stay off bicycles.

At one time or another, I had broken all of the first three rules and received either a reprimand or spanking. Neither of my parents did a lot of spanking, and I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the times I was spanked by either of them. My daddy consistently and speedily dealt with the breaking of any rules, so we knew what to expect. With only a few rules to remember, most of the time we could stay out of trouble.

Since I was prone to sassiness, it was usually the first rule I had the most trouble with. Sometimes daddy would only reprimand if the sassing was directed at him – but never at mama. Sassing mama in front of him always meant a spanking was coming my way.

I could understand the purpose of the first three rules: learning respect for authority from the first rule; learning responsibility and consideration for others from the second rule {We had no phone at our house, so lateness was a big worry for my parents.}; and from the third rule, respecting the property and privacy of others.{When I was growing up, this was a standing rule for most kids.}

Although I had never had an opportunity to disobey the fourth rule, it was always reiterated by daddy whenever he went over rules. I knew without being told why it was on the list. My parents had lost their first child at five months. One day, he was a healthy baby who came down with sniffles. Taken right away to the doctor to treat his first cold, he was put on an antibiotic as a precaution. In spite of proactive treatment, the sniffles progressed to pneumonia which took his life. Needless to say, this loss was life changing for both of them.

Years later, when more babies were born to them, both my parents carried a floating anxiety about the well being of their children. For my mother, her anxieties seemed mostly focused inside the home and keeping her children and house as free of germs as possible. She strongly enforced rules of hygiene, not allowing us to eat or drink after each other or anyone else.

But daddy’s anxieties seemed more focused on lurking dangers outside the home. For this reason, we usually lived within walking distance to school, so we wouldn't have to ride a bus. During times of snow, when there would still be lingering ice on the roads, he would walk us to school a little early to make sure we were out of the way of any sliding car. I knew the reason for the fourth rule was his fear of us being injured on a bicycle. I understood the reason, but I still longed to ride a bicycle. Really, I just wanted to learn to ride a bike, even though I had little hope of owning one.

We lived on a gravel road with all the houses on one side, facing a narrow stretch of low-lying land, thick with weeds and bushes, that bordered a creek. On the edge of the thicket, next to the road, sweet peas, blooming pink and fragrant, crawled toward clumps of orange tiger lilies.Wild pink roses climbed and wrapped around any bushes nearby. Hidden among the bushes and honeysuckle vines were blackberry bushes. Every day, kids in the neighborhood would walk the length of the road picking all the ripe berries off the bushes. Some days we would check morning and afternoon for ripe berries. Although there were quite a few bushes, you could never find enough blackberries for a pie, because of the constant gleaning from so many kids.

During those long summer days, we stayed outside nearly all day, and the only awareness of time was when mama called us for lunch {or dinner as we called it} and later for supper. After supper, we went back outside until bedtime.

One afternoon, sometime between dinner and supper, I decided to go look for blackberries. I found enough to fill each hand, and as I walked back down the dusty road toward home, I was met by the skinny dark-haired girl who lived next door, who was riding a shiny red boy’s bicycle. She rode up to me and stopped.

“Whose bicycle is that?” I asked her, curious to know who, in our neighborhood, had a new bike.

“It’s my brother’s,” she said, her brown eyes brimming with excitement. “He just got it, today.”

“When did you learn to ride a bike?” I was pretty sure this was the first time I’d seen her riding.

“Oh, I just learned to ride today,” she answered, breezily. “It’s easy. I learned to ride in just a few minutes.

"You learned to ride in just a few minutes?" I marveled.
“I can teach you,” she offered. “Do you want to learn how to ride?”

Did I ever! Finally, here was the opportunity I had been longing for. As I accepted her offer, rule four never entered my mind.

Handing her my berries, I sat down on the seat and waited for further instructions. After showing me how to apply the brakes, she said I must first learn to balance the bicycle. She would hold the back of the bike while I pedaled.

Thrilled beyond words, I pushed the pedals forward, and as the bicycle smoothly glided along, I marveled at the joy of it. It was just as wonderful as I thought it would be.

As I rode past my house, I asked her, “How am I doing?”

“You’re doing great!" she called after me, adding, "Now slow down a little and turn the handle bars a little to your left, so you can turn around."
Thinking her voice sounded a little distant, I looked back and saw she was standing in the road just past her own house.

“How long have I been riding on my own?” I yelled back to her.

“Since you rode by your house,” she yelled back, laughing.

After successfully making the turn, I rode back to where she was standing and told her, “I want to ride down the road again, this time all by myself.”

She agreed and said confidently, “You’re learning fast, just like I did.”

Starting off again, this time without any help, I rode down the same stretch of road and turned around. On the return trip, I looked toward my house to see if my younger sister was watching. She was watching and so was the man standing behind her – my daddy.

I rode up to where my friend was still standing in the road, and without a word got off the bike and moved the handle bars toward her. Then I walked up the sidewalk in front of my house to present myself to daddy and whatever punishment was coming my way.

My friend, who knew nothing about the fourth rule, followed me and squealed to my daddy, “Did you see her? Wasn’t she doing great?” Not waiting for his answer, she raved on, “And I taught her! I just now taught her to ride a bike!”

As I stared down at the sidewalk, I heard my daddy begin to speak, “You were doing pretty good out there. Is this the first time you’ve been on a bicycle?”

I nodded my head upward.

“Yes, it was the first time she has been on a bike, and I taught her to ride,” chimed in my friend, her voice spilling over with pride at her own achievement of teaching me on the same day she learned to ride herself.

“I just learned to ride today, and I taught her,” she said, looking at daddy for affirmation of this amazing feat.

“Wasn’t she doing good?” she asked daddy, again, still unable to wait for him to answer.

“Yes, she was,” daddy agreed with her.

Turning toward me, daddy said, “Well, if you are going to ride a bicycle, you need to be watching what is in front of you and stay out of the way of cars. Stay off busy streets, and don’t try to do any tricks.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Not only was I not getting punished, but now it seemed I had permission to ride a bicycle. Just to be clear, I asked, “Can I get back on the bicycle and ride down the road again?”

“Yeah,” he said, and added, “I’m going to stand here and watch you.”

Until her brother came to reclaim his new bicycle, my friend and I took turns riding it down the road and back. For me, the joy was now exponential. In one afternoon, I had learned to ride a bike, and now with my daddy’s permission.

The day my daddy reversed his decision about his fourth rule is a day in my childhood that still stands out for me. Now as a parent myself, I can put myself somewhat in his shoes. I’ve had to set a side some of my own fears to let my children have certain freedoms. What parent doesn’t feel joy at the sight of their child’s joy? Who would want to take that joy away?
Daddy’s fourth rule had never served the purpose of teaching character as the other three rules. Rule four had served my daddy’s fears. But in a moment of time, and in a moment of childhood bliss for me, he put a side his fears and allowed me to experience one of the simple joys of childhood – riding a bicycle.

B

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