Over time, I will be posting a nostalgic series of vignettes exploring my youthful days in the Osceola Park neighborhood of Pittsfield, Massachusetts during the 1950s and early 1960s. Such tales will describe my adventures when I was seven to 12 years old.
When I was seven years old, I liked to be with my grandfather and tend our garden next to Osceola Park. I was gullible enough to believe him when he told me that new fish would grow after he placed fish heads into the soil. Perhaps this was the genesis of my thinking that if I waste not, I want not.
There was an irregular row of lilacs, shrubs, and one little elm tree separating our yard from the Preston’s yard. Our border wasn’t a landscaper’s showcase and there was room for improvement.
One hot summer day, I walked the one quarter mile to the variety store on Route 20 to get a soda and look at the comic books. I noticed a large pile of recently cut weeping willow trees in the parking lot. I also observed that they were wilting. I had a brainstorm and realized there was a deserving place to which I could take and revive them.
I asked the owner if he would permit me to clear out these messy branches from his parking lot. He said yes and he would not even charge me for cleaning up his customer’s parking area. How fortunate could I be?
This was too much work for me to accomplish quickly, though. Time was of the essence. What to do?
I immediately returned to Osceola Park, gathered the boys around, and told them I needed their know-how and help “tout de suite.” Without hesitation, they followed me back to the store and pitched in. Next came a site to behold: an ad hoc, topsy-turvy tree parade on Route 20 with my yard as the destination!
We marched in single file and struggled to drag tens of branches of various lengths and weights with our bare hands. It took several trips for the seven of us and no one complained. We were of one mind. The highway passers-by could barely see us hidden beneath all these willow tree branches; what must they have thought?
We reached my yard and dumped the branches onto the border of my yard and the Preston’s. I quickly got out the shovels, rakes, and water hose from the chicken coop and phase two of the revitalization began.
We must have dug 20 deep holes in preparation for the replanting and likely regeneration. The bulky branches went into the ground in no time and received a big drink of water, too. I was optimistic that these forlorn branches would recover and create a leafy-landscaped wonderland. Alas, a successful outcome was not achieved.
By the next day, the trees appeared to be dead. My parents then had to tell us that, just like my grandfather’s fish heads, these tree branches wouldn’t really regenerate.
Life is a learning experience, isn’t it?
