Branching out is good for the soul

I carried my cake, homemade ice cream and lemonade outside. It was hot, the ice cream would soon be mush, and the cake covered with flies, but I had to get outside.

When I was told we were going to a surprise birthday party that morning, I had no idea the surprise was for a 90-year-old man.

The way I figured it, the surprise was he was still around. If I’d known I would be the only kid there, I would have passed on the cake and ice cream.

I found cool shade under a huge pecan tree and settled in. All the guests were sitting around the kitchen table, telling tales about the wonderful things the old man had done during his full life. As far as my aunts and uncles knew, the guest of honor had slipped off to take a nap.

I couldn’t blame him. Who wants to sit around listening to a bunch of old people talk like you’ve already passed over?

I was fighting a horsefly for the final bite of cake when the old man sat down beside me. The shade was plenty big, so I didn’t mind.

He just sat there, not saying a word, and it started to creep me out. I thought about moving off, but before I’d made up my mind, he spoke.

"Ain’t much of a party, is it?"

His voice wasn’t what I expected. It had a harsh rumble to it that made me look up to see if any of the pecans had shaken loose.

"The cake’s good," I said.

"Birthdays don’t get any easier," he said. "If I make it through the day, I don’t think I’ll have any more."

He didn’t sound like a man who was ready to cash in his chips. He just sounded like he was tired of birthdays.

"What’s wrong with birthdays?" I asked.

"Oh, it ain’t the birthdays that are wrong. It’s the people. All they want to do is sit around and talk about the past."

He kicked his shoes off and dug his toes in the cool dirt under the tree. I had the feeling then that we were just two kids passing the time of day. The fact that he was nearly 10 times my age didn’t seem to matter.

Suddenly he stood. "You know, when I was 12 I planted this tree." He reached up and easily grabbed a hold of the lowest limb. "I remember the day as if it was yesterday. This was my granddad’s place then. He told me someday this tree would be big enough for me to climb." He let out a deep sigh as he sat back down beside me.

"Did ya ever climb it?" I asked.

He just shook his head no. "When it was a dozen feet tall, I got married. By the time it was full grown, so was I."

"So?"

"Kid, grown men don’t climb trees," he said, then quickly added: "Not just for the fun of it."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Why not!" he said.

It took a few attempts, but with my help, he managed to climb several branches before he found a limb, sturdy and wide enough, to make a good perch.

I guess he would have stayed up in that tree the rest of the day. It wasn’t until I went to get us more cake that we got into trouble.

It took three aunts, two uncles and a volunteer fire department to get him down. I’ve never seen a kid have so much fun.

I don’t remember which one of us got into the most trouble that day. We both got sent to bed though. He was put to bed because he must have lost his mind. Evidently, a very tiring thing to happen.

I was put to bed because I should have known better than to help a 90-year-old man climb a tree.

Later that night, while everyone was sleeping, he crept into my room. He was carrying two pieces of cake. We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to. We just ate our cake in the dark and looked out into the full moonlight at his old pecan tree.