My brothers and I–and all the neighborhood kids–used to spend a lot of time in apple trees. (This was some years ago, but it’s probably still a good idea.) The best trees grew in our next-door neighbors’ gigantic yard. Clara and Bill were very nice people–even if they were sort of old–and they didn’t mind a lot of noisy kids at all.
We used to pretend we were pirates, and that the apple tree (or trees) were ships. The ocean, of course was the grass below. Sometimes the trees were castles, with lookouts and dungeons. Sometimes they were forts, and we played cowboys and Indians. If somebody shot you, you were dead until you counted to a hundred.
We counted pretty fast!
The best thing about apple trees wasn’t really the apples–they were usually sort of sour. (We ate them anyway.) No–the best thing was the climbing–going from branch to branch and feeling the tree move and sway with you. You got to know the trees very well; you could almost climb them blindfolded. Once, one of my brothers fell out of an apple tree, but I’ll tell you about that another time. Every summer ,we spent hours and hours in those friendly old apple trees, and it was more fun than anything! It made us feel a little bit wild.