If a Tree Falls
A couple of years ago, I saw a segment on Oprah about a kid who was obsessed with garbage trucks. Everyday he would run to the window and watch the garbage truck collect the trash. He particularly liked the arm contraption that would come out from the truck, grab the can and hoist it up, dumping the trash into the truck.
He could imitate all the sounds the trucks made. The garbagemen knew his name and would talk to him. The boy idolized the guys and when Oprah asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, the answer was obvious.
Things became complicated when he started school. He was devastated that he would no longer be able to see the trucks. So his parents devised a solution. They set the family camcorder to the the truck coming and going. He came to have an extensive collection of surveillance.
I recently remembered this and started thinking about obsessive behaviors of kids. We all had them. The garbage kid and I couldn't be the only ones.
I must have been about 9 when it started. Maybe I was a late bloomer. In January, after Christmas, a sad thing happens to Christmas trees. They dry up, get brown and die. Adults look at them noticing they no longer smell nice. There are pine needles all over the house. They remind them of uncomfortable holiday moments. Taking them down becomes a chore that gets put off a few times.
Finally the day comes and out the tree goes. And I come walking down Grosvenor on my way home from school. I see the tree lying dejectedly on the street, waiting for that tree chopper thing to come by and take them away. I can't bear the idea. I bring the trees home and they begin to line up in the back yard. I usually managed to collect somewhere between 15 and 20 trees. My conifers would sit happily in the garden until about March when my father would finally freak out and throw them all out.
By that time my sympathy for the trees was forgotten. I would feel a little bit of panic that my family might get in trouble from Westmount garbage pickup for putting out twenty Christmas trees in March, but we never did.
This went on for about three years.
I still can't understand why my parents let me get away with it.
Maybe they remembered the time a few years earlier when my dad decided to cut down all the snowball bushes on the front lawn to make room for some other bushes. I snuck the branches inside and stuffed them in the back of my closet. I don't think my mum found them for at least a couple of months. When she did, I explained I felt bad that they weren't loved anymore.
I was always a sensitive child.
He could imitate all the sounds the trucks made. The garbagemen knew his name and would talk to him. The boy idolized the guys and when Oprah asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, the answer was obvious.
Things became complicated when he started school. He was devastated that he would no longer be able to see the trucks. So his parents devised a solution. They set the family camcorder to the the truck coming and going. He came to have an extensive collection of surveillance.
I recently remembered this and started thinking about obsessive behaviors of kids. We all had them. The garbage kid and I couldn't be the only ones.
I must have been about 9 when it started. Maybe I was a late bloomer. In January, after Christmas, a sad thing happens to Christmas trees. They dry up, get brown and die. Adults look at them noticing they no longer smell nice. There are pine needles all over the house. They remind them of uncomfortable holiday moments. Taking them down becomes a chore that gets put off a few times.
Finally the day comes and out the tree goes. And I come walking down Grosvenor on my way home from school. I see the tree lying dejectedly on the street, waiting for that tree chopper thing to come by and take them away. I can't bear the idea. I bring the trees home and they begin to line up in the back yard. I usually managed to collect somewhere between 15 and 20 trees. My conifers would sit happily in the garden until about March when my father would finally freak out and throw them all out.
By that time my sympathy for the trees was forgotten. I would feel a little bit of panic that my family might get in trouble from Westmount garbage pickup for putting out twenty Christmas trees in March, but we never did.
This went on for about three years.
I still can't understand why my parents let me get away with it.
Maybe they remembered the time a few years earlier when my dad decided to cut down all the snowball bushes on the front lawn to make room for some other bushes. I snuck the branches inside and stuffed them in the back of my closet. I don't think my mum found them for at least a couple of months. When she did, I explained I felt bad that they weren't loved anymore.
I was always a sensitive child.
posted by Unknown at 7:36 a.m.
1 Comments:
It's a bush that usually grows a few feet high and is covered with semi-ugly flowers that are the size of grapefruits. The flowers and just lots of little blossoms all clumped together. They are usually white or green or mauve. They're consdiered a little tacky in the land of urban lawn gardening I think.
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