Swinging from a Branch

For all intents and purposes, I was an only child. People don’t generally talk about the pressures that occur when you’re an only child, especially when one parent is a perfectionist. My dad had high standards and he held everyone (including himself) to them with great consequence if a person didn’t measure up. Of course, I never measured up.

I used the neighborhood and our property as my playground. Even though I had a swing set and loved to play on it, there were all the walnut trees to climb. I didn’t care if I ate or slept, changed my clothes or took a bath. Being out side and having the the free run of the neighborhood was all I needed. If I got hungry, there were always things to eat in the garden or some of the molasses covered oats from the goat and sheep barrels. Climbing trees was something that I did well into my teens. Any tree that I could get a leg up on, I was there. After Dad planted nectarean, peach, and apricot trees in the side yard, we waited for fruit. The trees grew, but it seemed to take forever for the fruit. I was told to stay away from the trees. Don’t even think about climbing these little saplings. I didn’t see what the big deal was. The nectarean tree had really put on some growth. There were branches that were large enough to hold me, if I moved fast and got up into the tree to distribute my weight. One branch was larger enough that I threw my legs over it and hung from my knees and swung back and forth, just like I was on the monkey bars at school. I let my hands stretch down to the ground and raked at the dirt. As I did so, I began to slide down the branch to the main trunk of the tree. I had just made it when a pair of hands came out of nowhere and grabbed me at the waste and ripped me out the tree. My foot caught in the crotch, forcing a yelp from deep in my chest, as my dad twisted me out of the tree, leaving my foot behind.

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