Comments on: Money tree

By: Via Negativa » Blog Archive » Festival of the Trees 14: in katydid time

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:45:38 +0000

[...] Trees can make you imagine all sorts of interesting things. Artist Steve Emery (Color Sweet Tooth) makes a good case for the proposition that all trees are hollow: “What any tree climbing child discovers is that the hearts of trees are wonderfully open, and I recall as a child feeling like I was climbing up into the globe of a hot air balloon when I pulled myself up the sugar maple where our bird feeder hung.” A recent post here at Via Negativa also turned on a childhood memory of climbing into a maple. And writer Lorianne DiSabato of Hoarded Ordinaries submitted a wide-ranging essay, “Listening to Trees,” which included this story: The neighborhood where I grew up had few children for me to play with, so I spent a lot of time engaged in quiet, self-entertaining pursuits such as reading. The maple tree that stood in the courtyard between my family’s and our neighbor’s house — the same tree that is inextricably connected with my first memory of death — was my childhood companion and confidante, sheltering my childish thoughts as I lay dreaming below. [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:28:53 +0000

Well, people have a tendency to make a bit too much out of some of his utterances, I think, ever since he got that “Yogi” nickname due to his habit of sitting cross-legged. As Berra himself put it, “I didn’t say everything I said.”

By: David Harmon

David Harmon — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 01:14:44 +0000

I didn't know that bit of Berra's context! He is of course, famous for his offbeat wisdom and mutated proverbs, and I had figured that quote for more of the same.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:53:29 +0000

marja-leena – Oddly enough, I really hadn’t given it much thought until I went to write it down – a mention of “two coins” in a poem I was reading sparked it. Once written out, yeah, it did seem like a memory (or memories) worth preserving.

David – Well, you know why Berra said that, don’t you? He lives in Montclair, NJ on a street that bifurcates and then comes back together just before his house. So either fork would take one to the same place. There’s a lesson there, I think.

Larry – Yeah, the Pellucidar books were my favorites, but I read them all. I gave them away in my early teens, when I became aware of just how goddamn racist the Tarzan books were.

I thought my spelling of “Burrowes” looked peculiar! Thanks.

By: Larry Ayers

Larry Ayers — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:26:09 +0000

I was a kid during the sixties and I read all of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books I could find, starting with the Tarzan series, then moving on to Pellucidar and Barsoom (great names!). Burroughs contributed to the development of my vocabulary.

I liked the forked ending of your story!

By: David Harmon

David Harmon — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 05:08:06 +0000

find I have two competing memories about this.

This makes me think of one of Yogi Berra’s lines: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!” (Hey, determinism gets boring sometimes! ;-) )

By: marja-leena

marja-leena — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:04:36 +0000

This is a great story of a lovely childhood memory, sort of a family fable to pass on…