ShareThisAmid the maze of apartment buildings that comprised my childhood neighborhood you could walk one block south of where I lived, cross the street and head about 100 feet east to spend time with one of the community's most colorful and unusual residents -- a tree.
There was no better sun blocker than that Norway maple. Under its somewhat spreading canopy I sought relief, particularly when the sun sizzled at its highest point in the sky during the midday of summer.
But shade from that maple was illusory. In a flat four stories above lived a family comprised of two teenage children and their parents.
Lucy, the mom, stayed indoors most of the time, because, as her son, Frankie, put it, she was "crazy."
Among Lucy's greatest obsessions was protecting her daughter's purity.
Frankie's sister, Sandra, was a wildly striking young woman, with long black hair and black eyes. None of us awkward teens knew how to speak to Sandra, who made matters worse by flirting with or teasing us.
If Sandra passed by us, or one of us crossed paths with her, we would divert our eyes, as if to avoid looking directly into the sun.
When some of us congregated on the street corner, Lucy leaned out the window, waved an assortment of kitchen knifes and cursed at us. I can still see the sun glinting off the metal blades.
Lucy possessed a one-of-a-kind sense that allowed her to detect the presence of a testosterone-producing teen.
Besides displaying cutlery, Lucy tossed objects out the window. Often it was fruit. Once she dropped a salad on the head of a friend of mine.
Lucy also collected foot-tall religious statues of stone that her timorous husband lugged home for her. If Lucy believed or detected that a teenage boy was beneath the tree, she might drop an effigy on him.
I will never forget the violently frightening sound of a religious figure crashing though the foliage and striking the sidewalk, splintering into hundreds of chips.
To avoid the flying figurines, I would press up against the rough red brick and mortar of the aging apartment building or wedge myself into the well of a ground-floor window to seek some of the maple's shade.
Very rarely did I did get extended relief before Lucy sensed my presence. The stone shrapnel from the smashed statues hurt appreciably. Soon, I spent more time observing the tree than chilling beneath it.
Speaking of fast-falling objects, Frankie developed a heroin hunger back then. One day, he jumped out of the shadows, grabbed my younger brother and held a knife to his Adam's apple. I had to talk glaze-eyed Frankie out of cutting the throat of my sibling, who had done nothing to bring on the attack.
In addition to learning to stay away from dangerous people, as a teenager I found that you could feel at peace and safe under a single tree, as well as develop a personal attachment to it.
Over the years, I also discovered that trees conserved water, cooled us off, and improved the air and harbored wildlife. They provided privacy, screened out unwanted sights and softened the landscape.
Every November trees re-dominate the landscape. With their foliage gone, trees stand out in back yards, forests, fields and along our streets, which is why I remember Frankie, Lucy, Sandra and the maple.
Trees often produce a religious or spiritual response in us, feelings that go beyond the fact that they are beautiful and make our lives more pleasant.
It seems apt that a tree I considered a shrine in the midst of the concrete of my upbringing ended up surrounded by a supply of shattered statuary.
(Scott Turner is a nature writer. Reach him at scottturnerster(at)gmail.com. For more stories, visit scrippsnews.com.)
Must credit The Providence JournalComment
