The Tree

Your great grandparents live in Joplin, when I was a kid I used to spend summers with them.  They had a tree in the front yard that was perfect for climbing.  Your uncle used to climb it like a monkey, I was never that great at climbing but I did manage to get halfway up.  We were only the last in a long line of people to climb that tree, all our cousins did too.  When your great grandpa used to take your uncle and I to the library a couple times a week I would get a babysitter club book and climb up to my favorite spot in the tree and read for hours.

When the tornado went through it took down most of that tree and it ended up needing to be cut down completely.  I was sad about it, but it had to be done.

Your grandma got a picture of me next to the last of the tree.



I had hoped that someday you would get to climb the tree just like I had.  I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house.  Your great grandpa taught me how to cook, we made pancakes, and pizza dough, and pasta all from scratch.  The noodles were fun, but when grandma came home from work and saw that we had set up her laundry drying rack to dry the noodles on in the living room she was not so happy.  He taught me how to measure liquids for cooking with gallon milk jugs, two liter bottles, measuring cups, and these different sized metal ladles he had hanging over the sink.  He taught your uncle and I how to make our own rope and let us use hammers and nails to "build" things out of the spare boards he had.  We never actually built anything, but did have fun trying.

I hope that someday you get to learn things like that, He probably wont be able to teach you those things, but maybe I can.   You shouldn't think that learning things like that needs to be hard or boring or work, learning should be fun.  So I will try to teach you in a fun way, and one day when you decide you want to climb a tree, I promise I will try not to be too worried about it, and let you find a tree of your own.