CHARLIE THE WEEPING WILLOW

I remember as a kid, we lived in a pink house. It was the first house I ever lived in. In the 70's, pink houses were not that uncommon. I suppose it wasn't called pink, but maybe it was called Salmon. But either way, it was my first house. It had 3 bedrooms, I shared a bedroom with my brother, we had a trundle bed. Amy had her own room and Mom and Dad had the other. It was a small house, but to this day, I think it was a cool house. The back windows had those louvered windows that you cranked open and the deck over looking the back yard was actually positioned over the patio because downstairs was a walkout. I hardly remember the kitchen but I remember the basement. The basement was one of those that probably only kids can appreciate to it's maximum potential. It was a finished basement, probably though, you'd call it mostly finished. The laundry room was down there, and the storage area was down there, and there was one room that was finished, I think we used it as storage, and then there was sort of an all purpose room. I remember wood paneling and 70's type decor. The walkout to the patio was so cool as a kid. My Pop had setup a small above ground swimming pool on the patio. In those days, they weren't blowup pools, they had aluminum sides and liners and a ladder to climb into it. I used to stand on the deck above it and dream about jumping into the pool below. I think my brother actually did it a few times, but he was 4 years older, and definitely was crazy. But I never did it. The backyard was all hill. I remember it as long, and steep and being great for sledding. It was a terrific hill. And my dog Duffy loved to run the hill by the fence. His doghouse was on the side of the hill on a flat spot, and I can remember my Pop using actual roofing shingles to redo his roof on that doghouse. I also remember it getting painted every year. Nowadays, you go to Wal-Mart and buy a doghouse I guess. But that was Duffy's home, and my home. I remember one time we came home from church and an opossum had gotten into our garage. I thought it was a baby elephant and thought we should keep it. My Pop ran it off with a spade. That house was the first place I ever called home. I really loved that house. But when my little sister Abby came along, it proved itself to be just too damn small for a family of six, so we moved a few miles away to a bigger, better house.

And that next house was the house that I lived in through high school My parents added on to the back of the new house a few years later, and it became a terrific place to live too. But I'll always remember my first home.

Today, I had a little time to spare on my way to my Mom's condo, and I decided that since I was already in Hamilton, I would go check out the old neighborhood, the one I moved away from in Kindergarten. So the old house was there, it was a little more run down than I would have liked to have seen it, as was the neighborhood itself. But time takes it's toll on everything. The house,which I hadn't seen in years, looked old. There was a FOR SALE sign in the front yard, and too many cars and trucks in the driveway. The trees were overgrown and the roof needs to be replaced. But hey, it's still standing. I drove around the circular street and saw that behind our friends house about eight or ten houses away, they had developed that area and built new houses there. Me and my Pop had buried my cat Billy Bong back there when I was five years old. Ol' Billy Bong had surely been bull dozed years ago. And I started remembering the names of some of the neighbors there, from way back when. And I decided to drive one street over, behind the old house to see the view from there. And I saw it. They'd replaced those old louvered windows with typical storm type windows, and the backyard was much smaller than I remembered it. There was still a swing set at the bottom of the hill where ours had been thirty some years ago. But as I sat there, thinking about the times we'd sledded down that hill, and swam in our goofy little pool on our patio, I realized that something wasn't the way it should be. And then it hit me. Our neighbor, on the swing set side, had had a tree...a Weeping Willow, that hung onto our property, over the fence and we used to dance and play under it. We called the tree Charlie. Not sure who named it or why we named it or why we named it Charlie. But Charlie was the Weeping Willow that lived in our neighbor, Stanley Dezarn's yard. That tree, as I remember it, was huge. And it's branches spanned from the sky to the ground below. It was an amazing tree. I remember my Pop remembering that tree, and that we'd named it Charlie, decades later. Poor Charlie is no more. I guess that's the way things go. Charlie lived a good life I'm sure. What Weeping Willow doesn't have a good life?

And so I've been thinking about the old house and Charlie all day now. But what's really sticking in my head is this: Why would we name a tree? Why do kids do things like that? Why to I remember that some thirty five years later? I love that we did that. I love that we named it. That's part of being a kid isn't it. Charlie was part of the kid-universe that was my backyard. Charlie had a role in my life. Charlie was a tree. Charlie was a huge, magnificent tree. And I remember that tree, thirty five years later. How many trees do we name? How often in life do we take an inanimate object and make it a part of our personal history? When my sister Amy reads this, she'll smile and think I'm crazy, but she'll remember Charlie too. I told you earlier that I don't really remember the kitchen in that house, but I do remember the tree in our neighbors yard. How interesting. I think maybe we all need pieces of our life to resonate like Charlie does for me. Charlie was there for years prior to my existence and he was there for years after. He may have outlived ol' Stanley Dezarn but he didn't outlive me. That's a good thing because now i'm here telling you, my faithful reader about him. Charlie was a good tree. I miss him now that I'm thinking about him. He's kind of like Mr Snuffleupaguss on Sesame Street, no? So one of my best friends till I moved out of Southern Hills was a tree. A huge, beautiful, mature tree. And his name was Charlie the Weeping Willow.