Trees

We walked along the edge of the forest, the tree trimmer and I, on that crisp fall day, each pointing at limbs to be severed, ground areas to be cleared, pines to be thinned, before the winter set in. We agreed on the work to be done and parted ways. As I walked back along the tree lined driveway to the house, I was reminded of the poem by Joyce Kilmer that we learned in the sixth grade:

I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.

a tree that may in summer wear
a nest of robins in her hair.

While I didn't remember each particular stanza of the poem, I remember that we young girls penned our own version of the venerable poem:

I think that I shall never see
a boy that quite appeals to me.

A boy who doesn't always wear
a pound of grease upon his hair.

A boy who wears his shirttails in
and doesn't have a silly grin.

But boys were made for fools like me
and who on earth would date a tree.

With apologies to Ms. Kilmer.

Life on the Road

Growing up on the east side of the country, I did not see the need to learn to drive. The men had cars and happily acted as chauffeurs.  While my brothers liked to be in the company of my pretty girlfriends, dad wanted to find out where we were spending our time so it worked out well.  Too, we had excellent public transportation, between the subway, the buses and streetcars, not to mention the occasional taxi, I had no desire to learn to drive. Family road trips were led by dad, who taught us how to read a map. This educational moment then allowed all three of us children to scream in unison that he was going in the wrong direction, thereby saving my mother from timidly suggesting that we ask a gas station attendant for directions. Nonetheless, despite my brothers’ heckling and my father’s patient instructions, I never did learn north from south. To this day, when someone says “take this exit and then go north”, I still ask “is that left or right?”

And then I moved to Los Angeles. Public transportation was a joke and the joke was on me. I very quickly realized the error of my ways when I discovered that it was a two hour bus trip from home (Manhattan Beach) to office (downtown Los Angeles) so I lined up a professional driving school for a crash course (pardon the pun) in driving. In short order, I had a license, a car and an extra hour of sleep each morning. On the bright side, learning to drive on the Los Angeles freeways left me fearless to drive anywhere else in the country. I had the audacity of youth and the lack of experience on my side. I genuinely believed that other drivers were beeping their horns and waving, or were they shaking their fists, at me because I looked so cute behind the wheel of my new (okay, used) Toyota Corolla.

So I rode the freeways blithely, indiscriminately ignoring certain signs while paying attention to other signs. One sign that confounded me every time read “Junction [number] Freeway”. It had the same inscrutable affect as “Post No Bills” signs on construction site barriers. What did that mean exactly? So was the Junction Freeway a mystery. I had my handy Thomas Bros map book that covered three counties, which I perused endlessly, but I could never find the Junction Freeway. The other freeways were all named: Santa Monica Freeway, Long Beach Freeway, etc. If I could only locate that Junction Freeway on the map, apparently, I could travel anywhere. Everywhere I went, there it was -- “Junction Freeway”. The epiphany came none too soon. As time went by, freeway names morphed into freeway numbers and the “junction freeway” was no more.

Also, I learned, in my travels, both domestic and international, each geographic area had its own nomenclature while other signs were more familiar.  Amber alert, for instance, is used throughout this country to assist in locating missing children. Silver alert, while new, is reasonably inferred to assist in locating seniors with Alzheimers or other senior related disabilities. While this alert is seen more often on the east coast, I can only assume it does not turn up on the west coast because no one west of the rockies has silver hair. While the red, orange and green traffic lights are most often obeyed in this country; other countries, not so much. In Italy, for instance, green means go, orange is a decoration and red is a suggestion.

My current favorite road sign is “all turns from right”. It’s most frequently seen and used in New Jersey, albeit not exclusively. However, for the west coast tourist driving the east coast roadways, this sign is nothing but baffling.  We wanted to make a U-turn, and kept looking for a left turn sign at each intersection but never found one. I kept hearing the lines from the old Kingston Trio song “did he ever return, no, he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned, he may ride forever through the streets of Jersey. . . .” That was us, riding, riding, riding, until we stopped at one intersection and watched a motorist turn right on a side road that led to the crossing intersection and from there, made a left turn. We later learned that this traffic arrangement  is also called a jug handle. All I can say is, only Snookie could understand and it’s best to stay out of Jersey.