My Tree

The Farm. I can hardly believe that I haven't really touched on this place yet, but - there you have it.
Like many places, the farm has created or is the canvas for the bulk of my significant memories. Some good and some kind of horrible and scarry.
As is the case with most of my memories, I remember this day and everything about it. I was bored. My Dad was busy working on the house as he always was regardless of which property my family was inhabiting. My Mother was again attempting to return to her favorite past life as an 18th century Gentleman's wife, content to amuse herself with gardening, needlework and the most cursory oversight of her splendid children while someone else was responsible for running the household. Unfortunately, and much to her constant chagrin, there were no servants in her actual middle-class existence.

I wore my favorite sweatshirt, a faded orange with darker orange ribbing around the sleves, hem and neckline, emblazoned with a transparent Mickey Mouse face in the center. The sleeves were too tight and they pinched under my arms, but I loved it because it was otherwise soft.

This tree in particular was 'my tree.' My tree smelled like musky bark, ants, apple cider and clothespins.


It stood and still stands at the edge of the orchard, was easy to climb into and had a natural little seat in the craw of it. When I was six, it was 106 and beginning a reluctant decline. Today it lives in the dusk of it's life, barely hanging on to it's stately silouette and producing the most meager crop of tart, crisp apples. When I was six, one of it's 106 year-old branches was beginning to fail. Inattention was killing it. Bugs, age and ice were slowly doing their collective damage to remove it. But while they tried, a wonderful secret hide away was created - a rotted pocket in the huge branch that could only be seen if you climbed up into the tree and looked from above. I could fit all kinds of  things in there for safe keeping and nobody ever found them - especially my brother. He was too little to climb.

I kept all sorts of tiny possessions in that hidden nook. Buried inside and old jewelry box that was covered in white leatherette and had a noisy spring-loaded hinge and gold trim. Among the items I kept there was a gold keychain I got from the tiny antique shop at Emerald Lake - a four leafed clover, thick and heavy in my hand for such a small thing with a worn out clasp which made it impossible to use because any key you put on it would likely fall off. But most I had no keys and because my Dad hoarded keys and never let anyone else have them, including my Mother.

I had a few favorite spots at the Farm. One was another tall Maple tree that stood in the front yard close to the road. From my perch in that tree I could watch the road and listen to the near constant buzz of my Father's circular saw or the wrap of his hammer as he worked tirelessly to improve every part of the old house. The other was a huge granite rock that marked the southwest corner of the wooded area of the Farm. That rock lay under the awning of another huge Maple. My brother and I would stand atop it and sing, "Jeramiah was a Bullfrog! . . . ." at the top of our lungs so that we could hear our voices echo across the hayfield that formed a natural ampitheater. We were rockstars! The apple trees that flanked the hayfield were our most faithful audience - unless the Maney's cows got out again.