Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I was wondering if you have any memories of your favorite trees as you were growing up.

I had a tree in our back yard that I climbed on, sat against with a book in my hand and fell out of one day, nearly breaking my back. During a night time storm I could hear it's branches swaying in the wind, creaking and moaning. I watched it grow bigger over the years and saw it's bark heal old wounds. Us kids would build make-shift lean-tos and camp out in the summer time and cook our breakfast on a coffee-can stove under it's branches. I have a lot of pleasant memories of that tree. I guess we both grew up together.

Any memories you have?

-1bigsteve (o:

I used to spend a lot of very nice times at my aunt's home in the country. My best childhood memories are there. There used to be five old apple trees that my grandfather planted in the front yard and I used to sit in one of them and read Nancy Drew books.

I remember two, Steve. The first was a perfect climbing tree--a beech-- the only tree on our farm that had branches I could reach even at the age of 5 or 6. I loved being rocked in it on windy days and pretending it was a ship or a hot air balloon. It was next to the road, but no threat to the wires. Just the same. the utility people came through one day and levelled it. I was devastated. The second was an apple tree in an adjacent yard when we moved into town a few years later. It had a wonderful low lying branch that provided a perfect refuge for my teenage sulks. The neighbor never seemed to notice or care about my trespassing.

Trees are wonderful at keeping secrets.

--Lyddie

I grew up on a dairy farm, out in the boonies. We had a good sized wooded area that contained all kinds of trees, however, there was one particular apple tree, which was one of my favorites. It was a small tree which we could easily climb up in to get the apples, but my sister and I found it alot more fun to ride our horses, bareback (with just a bridle), to this apple tree, pick apples from atop our horses, and indulge ourselves with eating a few green apples. Of course, our horses had to have an apple or two also. When we were finished riding through the woods, we would turn our horses around and race them back to the house at a full gallop!!!

In the fall my whole family would gather up hickory nuts, and black walnuts. Crack open the outer shells by using a sledgehammer and tree stump, then crack open the inner shell, pick out the goodies, eating a few as we worked, of course, then put them in containers for winter use.

We also had lilac brushes, which ran the full length of our back yard fence. In the spring time, we would open the windows in the house and within a short period of time the smell of lilacs filled the entire house.

My grandparents (my mother's parents) are buried under the most beautiful oak tree I have ever laid my eyes on. Perhaps this oak tree appears to be the most beautiful of oak trees to me, because my grandmother was the most beloved person in my childhood. She and I would take walks down in our woods in order to bird watch - she could name every kind of bird we found.

There are several things I do not miss about living on a dairy farm, but there are many, many more things I truly miss.

My favorite tree was a Christmas tree that appears in our home movies when I was 4 or 5 - in Baltimore, Maryland.

I grew up in an apartment behind a grocery store. My front yard was the driveway behind it that was used for deliveries. Believe it or not there were 3 trees that I will never forget. On one of the main roads (actually East Main St.) there were 2 trees that were both over 300 years old. One was on a very busy corner with a four way intersection. It was so big it became a threat because it was so close to the road that if any branch came down someone would get very hurt or killed. It is an extremly busy corner with much traffic. The second was further down on the same street. It was in front of the neatest little bookstore. It became diseased inside and had to come down, again, on that steet it would easily hurt someone. I know the owner of the bookstore & she got in touch with the Chief of the Nipmuck Indian tribe. They had a ceremony for it before they took it down. Can you imagine if they could talk the history they would teach? The third is at my Aunt's house--- I loved that tree, I would sit & just look & study all the branches it was Huge and it provided shade to her kitchen. That one just came down about 2 years ago and her kitchen is so hot, every time I go there, I tell them I miss that tree & my aunt says "You're not the only one". My uncle doesn't say much so I didn't want to push the issue.

During my childhood there was a large apple tree across the creek about 300 feet from my house and my friends and I would climb it and pick apples that our mothers would turn into pies. Oddly enough what I remember most about that tree, aside from it's huge size, was a bump that looked just like a large handle on a Victorian era kitchen water faucet that we used to grab ahold of and pull ourselves up by. It had grown in the perfect spot. That tree and the field it grew in has a lot of fond memories for me. There were old 1880 era run-down chicken houses and stables that had been long abandoned. We stole old lumber from those shacks to build our forts and such. One day my friend and I got caught pulling the lumber off by a neighbor lady. We saw her coming through the bushes and took off running. She took our dad's hammers and a few days later, when we got up the courage, we went to her house and asked for them back. She refused. From then on we called her "The Hangin' Old Lady." I don't remember why. She was a tall woman about 6' 2". Us kids had a lot of adventures there.

They say we "can't go home again" but we can at least dream about it can't we? Life was good.

-1bigsteve (o:

You'all seem to have happy apple tree memories in common!

I have an apple tree in my current backyard. A normal sized apple tree. The worms get to it before I do so I don't really have any interest in this one. There are few things I love as much as hot apple pie!

Naomi Judd said in her auto-bio that she had a favorite walnut tree in her backyard growing up in Ashland, Kentucky where she loved reading her Nancy Drew books and cracking walnuts. Reading her book sends me back to my own childhood when times were good and people were kind. The sweet life.

-1bigsteve (o: