Thom writes:Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.
Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.
To join this week's Three Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:
Careful; Hug; Mistake.
Doing It To Myself
Mom admonished me
that I be careful and then
she would hug me tight.
I would pull away,
anxious to get out the door,
make no mistake about that.
The next thing I knew
would be some trouble
brewing, me heedless and rash -
all expectation.
That's how I hung my own self
from the tree I scaled
on that fateful day.
March 13, 2013 10:05 AM
This is actually a memory, although it is not quite how it happened. It was another kid and the tree was a purple leafed cherry plum tree up the block from my house. There were three or four of us in the tree and when the kid caught his necklace on a stub sticking up above the branch, he was panicked immediately. From my adult eyes looking back I don't think he was in much real danger but no one in the tree knew what to do for a short while. He got more and more panicked hanging there. He had both hands on the branch above but not enough energy or thought to pull himself up. I was closest and just lifted the chain off the stub. It was my first experience of "saving" someone. I was in second grade.
The cherry plum trees were fairly common in Berkeley, California in the early fifties. They were known in my house as Chinese Cherries. That's the wrong name it turns out after a little research. While chiefly ornamental in Berkeley, the fruit is edible but quite sour, looking far more like a cherry than a plum.
thank goodness you were there and were calm enough to know what to do.I'm sure that person is grateful even today.
ReplyDeleteOh I bet he doesn't even remember. It was embarrassing for him almost immediately.
DeleteQuite an experience for a youngster.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember much but I remember this one. I even remember where on the block that tree was. I have googled my street. Both houses we rented rooms in post war are still there but one has been rebuilt beyond recognition. The other is still the same basic shell but I am sure it is single dwelling again. It was turned into apartments for the war effort.
DeleteThat would be World War II...
DeleteMy parents were college students at the time and then just graduated, but not yet moving toward the teaching profession. My step dad had exercised the GI Bill. My Mom was a university instructor in her major, possible because she graduated cum laude and was class valedictorian. My dad tried to become a pro football player but wasn't good enough to push out his competition on the line and in the defence. He got jobs in construction and at Cutter Laboratories. Then we moved to the San Juaquin valley in Ca. where both Mom and Dad began teaching in the wartime vacancies that existed out there on the promise they would get certified at College of the Pacific in their off time.
DeleteGlad that he was saved! quite a take on a memory!:)
ReplyDeleteIf he had let go the necklace would probably have snapped and he would have fallen about four feet from the tips of his feet to the ground. Maybe a broken arm at worst, and far more likely nothing much except a broken necklace and some scrapes at the back of his neck. It's just that is not what it felt like to any of us at the moment.
DeleteIt is a tenuous life we lead isn't it? I fell out a tree and luckily only broke my wrist rather than my neck. The first question my mother asked me was "Did your brother do it?" seeing we didn't get on. But I was honest so he didn't get punished! Thanks for the memory.
ReplyDeleteYour first experience? Begs the question of the others you've saved ....
ReplyDeleteWe had one in Soquel we called a Japanese plum. I always thought the blossoms smelled like corn tortillas.
there is a streak of rebellion..doing what your parents/authority say to the letter..in order to prove them the fool..but then i am weird..
ReplyDeleteThere was an engineer at a paper mill where I worked who had such a poor reputation with everyone that they did that to him. He would plan a job and they would execute it verbatim even when the error was obvious, then ask him what to do. Hilarious. They never treated me like that.
Delete