I was 10. It was summer. It was hot! I lived with my grandma at the time, and my cousins would visit a lot. My cousins, both boys 9 and 7, my brother 8 and I used to climb this magnificent climbing tree my grandma had out behind her house. The tree was about 150 yards from my grandma's house and it stood between her house and the parking lot to the school baseball fields. This tree was grand. It had a good split in the trunk to get our footing started. The tree had some really thick lower branches that pretty much stair stepped to the higher branches. We spent a lot of time in this tree. It was our favorite tree. We would sit on the branches and sometimes watch the baseball games. We all used to have our favorite branch. That is until the day my cousin fell out of it.
It was Tuesday, my cousins were there for the week. After watching cartoons until they turned to the boring old news, we got on our play clothes. We all headed out to our tree and began climbing. My cousin, Kevin ( the 9 year old and a fairly big boy) always wanted a lower branch because he was a bigger kid. My brother being the skinny runt he was always monkey climbed his way up to the near top of the tree. My youngest cousin, Stephen, always went somewhere in the middle. ON this particular day we were playing office and I was on the ground bossing them around (which I did on a daily basis). Kevin decided to move to a higher branch for his new office. He was straddling the branch about 10 to 15 feet off the ground. All of a sudden we heard this small popping sound followed by a really loud CRAAAACK. The branch that held my cousin had broke. He landed about 3 feet down on the next branch. He was still straddling the first branch. The force of the 90 pound boy and branch caused the second branch to also snap and he fell the rest of the way down on top of the two branches. This happened in probably about 30 to 45 seconds, but when your a kid it seemed like slow motion. He got up, immediately busted into tears holding his boy parts in both hands and screaming and crying all the way back to my grandma's about "his nards are going to fall off, his nards are going to fall off". We all took off after him. When we got to the house, my grandma looked him over. He didn't even have a scratch on him. His "nards" turned out fine too. About 30 minutes after it happened, we were all laughing about the shocked expression on his face and that his "nards were going to fall off". Unfortunately, that was the last time we got to play in our tree. Every once in a while, we would sneak off into it. My cousin always made sure he stayed on a lower branch.
This was part of the Blog everyday in May challenge found here.
Oh haha, thank god you weren't the one that fell. I never had the opportunity to climb a tree before, I still kind of want too!
ReplyDeleteYou would love it. Everyone should climb a tree at least once. I haven't found a good climbing tree like that one.
DeleteWe have a tree in our backyard that the kids like to climb. I sure hope that Darian never falls on his "nards" Funny story. Great childhood memory
ReplyDeleteHaha, just tell not to get to high or wear a cup. :)
DeleteOk, so after crying reading Paula's story, I needed this! Now I've got tears pouring down my face from laughing so hard. I can just picture it, so vividly, all of you running behind as your cousin screams about his "nards." This story is fantastic! Just a thought....did he ever have kids? Just curious about whether or not those "nards" survived and were in working order, lol.
ReplyDeleteI am glad I could make you laugh. We are very lucky he didn't break anything. He never had kids, but not because of that. His wife is like 35 years older than him. Who knows if they are in working order. lol
DeleteI'm visiting from Paula's blog. She's giving you some blog love today. Enjoyed your story. My brother did the same thing thank goodness his nards were untouched and he only broke his arm...he has the kids to prove it!!
ReplyDeleteCute story!!
Hi, Thanks for stopping by. Paula is too sweet. I am glad you enjoyed my story. That was a fun summer. Haha...I am so glad your brother was okay and you have some nieces/nephews. Too bad about the arm though, I guess it could have been a lot worse. Curious though, does he let his kids climb trees? Again, thanks for stopping by. :)
DeleteThat's pretty brave to climb a tree. A definitely scary experience for your cousin. I know I'm not supposed to laugh but it's pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteIt was hilarious at the time. We were kids. We laughed when he jumped back up and took of running. He finally started laughing about it too after he started feeling better. My grandma didn't think it was too funny though. One of these days, I will go take a picture of that tree, if it is still there.
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