It's comin' down

Our back yard is all grass, save for one palm tree. It was planted in 1987 and the palm fronds still touched the ground it was so small. We watered it a few gallons at a time, twice a week, thinking it would grow up as plants do. This one didn't. Instead, it grew outward. Yup, our palm bush got fat. Eh, whuduya want for free?

Some years later, though, it finally grew upwards. A lot. Now it's about 45 feet tall and rather than it effectively being a tree, it's effectively being a barb-protected flag pole that nobody can use. We had our tree guy come out as he does each year or so to give us the estimate on trimming our evergreens out front and saw the palm standing tall in the back, sorely in need of a shave. Evidently he thought it was in need of A LOT of shaving. Like down to the ground.

The guy told dad that the trunk was no longer sturdy enough to guarantee that a strong wind wouldn't snap the tree - the tree had simply grown too tall and became a lever in the wind. Dad didn't exactly relish the thought of having a permanent palm tree in our house instead of the yard, and even less the thought of having the tree inadvertently relocated into house of one of our neighbors. So down it will come in January.

This, to me, will be a bit of sweet revenge. Back in jr. high and high school my friends and I used to play BYF - back yard football. This wasn't so much like football as you know it, but a cross between football, rugby, and smeer the queer. One team of three or four threw the ball aganst the fence at the other end where the opposing team was. That team then had to pick up the ball and run/pass it towards the other end. Multiple forward passes were permissable. Incomplete passes were deadball turnovers; lost fumbles and int's could be advanced. If you moved the ball to the opposite end and touched the fence while in posession, it was 3 points. If you tackled someone with the ball it was one point. If the ball went over the fence it was -1 point. Now, for the most part, we were shorter/smaller guys. I weighed all of 140 on a good day, and our avg. height was 5 foot 9. We really weren't cut out for h/s football, but you get us in the yard and we were superstars...fearless. I was like Troy Brown meets Devin Hester. And, as good of a combination as that might be, my friend Andy Wright was like Lawrence Taylor plus LaDanian Tomlinson...(yes, that's LT^2). Andy *should* have played football, but his folks wouldn't let him. They were too afraid he'd get hurt while playing in pads but for some reason they thought nothing of him tackling and getting hit without protective gear. Eh. In any case, I was returning the kick one evening and brushed off a pair of defenders to see nothing but the fence in front of me. This really should have been a warning sign since, in the back of my mind, I know we never play with less than three on a team. Right as I was crossing midfield - where the tree stood - Andy popped out from behind the tree and made me pay for my forgetfulness by introducing my back to the ground.

This is one of two times in my life I've been de-cleated, and the only time in my life I've ever fumbled the football. It didn't hurt (not right then, at least...the next morning I felt like death, though), but it definitely stunned me. I just laid there...couldn't hear anything, largely unaware of where I was and what happened. After a couple of minutes I was fine but that hit was the most fierce contact any of us had experienced to that point, and it ended up going down as the most vicious hit in BYF (lucky me, eh?). Had that palm tree not been there, though, I'd have seen Andy and...well, I don't know what I would have done, but I guarantee I wouldn't have just allowed myself to get destroyed like that.

So, palm tree, oh camouflager of destruction, it's time for me to return the favor you once paid me. I'm bringin' the pain in January, baby!