An old friend gets a trim

(One of my Sunday morning newspaper columns, from August 12^th, 2012) 

Not too long ago I raced a thunderstorm home on my morning walk. 

It was huge (the thunderstorm, not the walk, which was exactly the same length that it’s been for over twenty years).  That gigantic thunderhead was moving in off the gulf and filled up the whole sky with a blue-black threat that said, with definite certainty, that it would have to be dealt with soon.

When I said we were racing I was exaggerating. Neither of us was moving fast enough for it to be called a race. But I guess I won anyway; when I got home I was still dry.

 It was a Monday, either the 2nd or 4th Monday of the month.  I know that because that meant it was Big Trash day in my neighborhood.  And since the Big Trash collectors sometimes make my street one of the first items on their agenda I faced a bit of a dilemma.

The cause of the predicament was a big pecan tree in our backyard.  A good many of its bottom limbs, heavy with an abundance of nuts – still green, still growing – hung down nearly to the ground.  Low enough to make mowing under that tree a chore.

I looked at the tree.  Then I looked at that enormous thunderstorm that filled up the southern sky, considerably darker and meaner looking than it had been a few minutes before.

What I needed to do was cut off all those lower limbs and carry them out to the side of the street. But my window of opportunity was small; if it didn’t happen awfully soon it wouldn’t happen for another two weeks.   And I get downright judgmental about folks leaving big trash beside the road for long periods of time.

So I had to decide.  Get those limbs out there in a hurry or let them keep knocking my hat off when I mowed for another two weeks.  And the way it had been raining lately, that would mean three or maybe four mowings.

I opted for Plan A.  So I quickly commenced giving the tree his first pruning in a while. The thunderstorm bellowed out a deep roll of thunder to let me know the race was on.

Something in the vicinity of a trillion mosquitoes provided the cheering section.  Even though I was well lathered with repellant they were after me like hungry diners at an all-you-can-eat buffet. And this right after the mosquito truck went by, laying its fog of fumes that would likely give me a headache. 

Old-timers, coast huggers since the cradle, like to think they’ve grown immune to the emissions of mosquito trucks. Nearly everyone I know who grew up down here has told me about how they, as children, rode behind those trucks on their bikes, breathing in the poison. It’s a regional reference as predictable as people from other areas insisting that they walked five miles to school, barefoot, in the snow.

Of course, chasing a truck pumping out poison might explain a thing or two about some of the people that I know.

 I won that second sprint with Mother Nature as well.  But just barely. The first big drops splattered on the driveway as I hurried out with the last limbs, and I managed to get inside before the bottom fell out and rain came down in driving sheets.

After a shower in the tub, after avoiding one in the yard, I sat snug and dry and cool in our living room with a cup of fresh coffee and looked out at our pecan tree, sporting its new haircut.

It’s been a fine companion, that tree.  It watched our daughters grow up, and it watched me read many a book and take many a nap in a hammock in its shade.  Over the years blustery winds have broken some branches in its upper regions. When those winds get even stronger, it gives that old fellow a real shaking, and a cleansing.  That’s when I have to pick up a good many branches off the ground.

The tree is always better for the purification (though my back never is), just as it was better that rainy morning minus its lower limbs. But I know that one of these days a strong enough blow, probably a mean hurricane galloping through, might do away with the tree altogether.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  He could have been talking about that tough old tree. Or even about me picking up its limbs.

He could also have been talking about my friends who used to chase the mosquito trucks on their bikes.  Or, at least, they said they did.