When I was a small boy, about eight years old we use to live in a small house with a big orchard filling the two vacant lots next to us. There must have been a hundred fruit trees of every variety. In the back there were the apples and toward the middle were the plums, pears, cherries and toward the front were the peaches and apricot trees with big lilac bushes scattered all around spreading their purple fragrance every where. Grapevines crawled along the fence that bordered our property. WOW! Looking back it seems almost like how heaven might be described.
Towards the middle, the very first cherry tree was the biggest black royal cherry tree I have ever seen. That tree bore so many big cherries that the branches looked like they were going to break. I did my best to help that old tree by thinning out some of those cherries every day. The black birds and I worked steady at it, saving those branches from breaking. I use to climb so high and so far out that the small branches at the top would bend and sway when I reached out. That’s where the biggest and ripest cherries were and the black birds had me at a definite disadvantage here, but I got my share. I use to sit up there as high as I could go and look up and watch the birds come in and try to land only to see me. They squawked loudly and offensively at me and would fly down and land on top of our chimney and squawk some more. I didn’t care; I laughed and ate more of the biggest, ripest, and sweetest cherries on that whole tree.
It was up there one day that I thought deeply about what it would feel like to be a bird flying up high then higher and maybe into a couple clouds and then zoom back down faster than a bullet toward the ground then zoom back up again. WOW! I remember praying to God once; kneeling there at my bedside asking if he would let me be a bird, just for one day.
One day I was out on a big branch that went way out and formed a perfect fork. I thought what a nice place to sit. I hadn’t been out on this branch before and it was nice, but it felt empty underneath. There were no branches at all below me if I were to fall. Looking down at my little sister, I realized then how high I was by how small she was. I just sat there in that fork and ate some more cherries. I threw some nice ones to Suzie, that’s my sister. My stomach started feeling funny so I quit eating cherries and started climbing down. The next day before going up that old black cherry tree, I went to the old shipping chest in the barn and dug out a big long rope, the kind they tie up boats with. I took down mom’s clothesline and tied one end of the line to the rope and the other end to my britches and up that cherry tree I went. I managed to get to that forked branch and tied the rope to it with one of the best knots I ever tied. I swung my leg over and bellied that branch while scissor pinching that rope tight with my legs and chinned down that rope. At the bottom, I took the slack end lying on the ground, looped it up, and tied another knot. I had me a Tarzan rope. YEE-HAW. I swung and I spun, right side up and up side down. What a feeling, to float around like a flower in the breeze.
After a while I started getting brave and off to the side was a plum tree. I hitched that rope to my britches and climbed up as high as I could until the rope bent on a branch below me. I put my foot in the loop of the rope, looked again at that branch, and hollered GERONIMO. I was swinging. With the bend the rope took around that branch the first part of the swing was almost straight down for about 10 feet then curved hard into a gentle arc and zoomed down toward the ground. There must have been 3 or 4 G-forces pushing me down when I started swinging up. I had to hang on for dear life. I thought for sure I was a goner but up, up and up I went almost as high as I was in the plum tree. That’s when I hit my head on that pear tree. What a feeling, floating there, just for a split second looking at that big juicy pear. Then I started falling down again, zooming back toward the ground and all those G-forces, and then back up toward the plum tree again. What a thrill! I’ll never forget that moment. “THE FIRST TIME,” I was flying just like a bird. Thank you God. Dale. 853
Returning home after living out of state for many years, I was anxious to see Samantha again, my gorilla spirit-guide from my youth. I made the Zoo my first visit. The old Animal Shelter building across the street was gone now. As I pulled my van into a parking-stall in front of the zoo, I wondered what else might have changed.
The first big change I noticed was now there was a hefty admission charge to commune with nature. The old decorative sculpting which encased the main entrance doors setting the tone of 'African Jungle' looked the same as it did over 40 years ago. I paused for a minute, looked at every little detail, and did a quick flashback to my youth.
After I passed through the front doors though I found nothing to be the same. What use to be a wide-open viewing concourse with cages lined up on all four sides, was now a series of walkways that weaved in and around various cave-like structures. There were plants and benches spattered here and there. I ventured through the maze towards the far side and listened to the jungle music that emanated from unseen speakers.
Then, I saw her. She was sitting with her back leaning against a cave-like wall, right next to the large Plexiglas display window. She was looking at something on the opposite wall, up high near the ceiling. Approaching her, I looked up and saw a beautiful, hand-painted mural of a jungle canopy scene.
There, on one of the branches, with very colorful plumage, stood a parrot stretching high towards the sky.
I glanced down to Samantha and smiled. She gained some weight over the years and had a potbelly now, but then so did I. There was a small flat spot right near her and I moved closer and sat down. She just sat there and stared at that parrot, and never acknowledged my presence at all. To her; I was just another person that came around to gawk at her, BORING!
She held her massive right hand up to her chin, and with her index finger, she rubbed a small circle pattern on her cheekbone. She focused on that mural scene and appeared to be in deep pensive thought about something, while pondering on that parrot. I imitated her gaze and after a short bit, I too found deep introspective, meditation material from that spot on the wall. So, we just sat there, and pondered together.
I reached to my pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag filled with pipe tobacco, and played around with it in my fingers. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her drop her hand as she turned her head down to glance at my tobacco. I smiled, but, as soon as I turned my head to look at her she broke off her glance, and went right back to gazing at that parrot again. And then, so did I.
I got up and strolled on over there, and got a real close look at that parrot on the wall, and then it occurred to me; I couldn't tell if that parrot was landing, or just taking off in flight, or just stretching.
So, I returned to my sitting position, right next to Samantha, and without ever glancing at her, we pondered some more on that parrot.
She was looking at my tobacco, and me again, and I wanted so bad to make eye contact with her. I snuck a quick furtive glance in her direction and she instantly jolted her head back and looked up towards that spot on the wall again. Okay, so did I.
I went back to playing some more with my bag of tobacco. I put my fingers in the bag and fumbled around with the tobacco some more and she glanced down again, with irresistible curiosity. I pulled some tobacco out and let her look at it, then I put some to my mouth and pretended chew on it. I snuck another quick glance at her and briefly, just for a second, I made eye contact with her before she threw her head back and stared at our parrot again.
She was being aloof with me and not in a subtle way, so I followed her lead and put my head back and stared at that spot too, again. And soon, she started to check me out again, so this time, I gave her a show. While I looked intently at that parrot on the wall, I vigorously played around with my bag of tobacco. I pulled some out and let it fall through my fingers, back into the bag. I put a big bunch to my mouth and started to chew vigorously. I then put the bag right up to the glass, and, after she made sure I was still staring at our spot, she leaned over, right next to the glass, and looked closely into the bag, real close. I think she wanted some.
So I reached in with my fingers again and pulled out some more and put it too my mouth again, and chewed hard, chomping almost this time. I was going to make her jealous, dad-gum it, for being so aloof with me. Then I got up and walked over to that wall, pretended to study that parrot's lift off, or landing, or whatever, and then, I turned and walked away.
I visited the rest of the zoo and returned about 45 minutes later for a revisit, and WOW!!! I don't know where she got it, she must have tore her bedding apart, but she was now sitting in the middle of what looked to be at least, half a bale of hay, spread out all around her. And, in her mouth, she had a long stem of alfalfa that she chewed on profusely. That stem went up and down, and round and round in circles, all the while, she just stared at our spot on the wall.
I looked down at my scrawny bag of brown pipe tobacco, then back at her lush green grass spread all around her, and just Laughed Out Loud with jealousy. I'd been out done by a gorilla, and I loved it. Dale
