So I’m back it seems, though I’m not quite sure where I’ve been.   Mostly writing resumes, applying for jobs, interviewing, and trying to keep up with my current job at work.  Dealing with appliance issues around the house (heating unit, dishwasher, water heater all needed work or replacement in the past two months) has taken up a bit of time, though my wife usually has to deal with the repairmen more than I.  Friends have asked why I’m not writing, relatives have commented as well, so I’m back, shamed into the writer’s seat.  Keep reminding me, it seems to work.

My retirement ceremony is set for 28 April, preparations are underway.  It is an interesting verbal dance I have each week with my deputy.  “I don’t need a ceremony,” I say.  “It’s not for you anyway,” he says.  “Can’t we just…?” I try.  “No,” he asserts firmly.

I’d be happy with a handshake and an escort to the door.  Everyone around me insists that my wife and kids deserve closure, that friends will want to see me formally retire, that seniors and colleagues will want to say goodbye.  Okay, whatever…I will soldier on.  My real concern is that I think I will cry when I try to say goodbye to the Army publicly.  No that’s wrong.  I know I will cry.   I’m happy to be moving on to a new phase in my life, but twenty-eight years of Army gets in your blood.   I’m not sure how to face the changeover without expressing emotion.    I may even have to plan in advance what I’m going to say, something I NEVER do.   Whatever it takes I guess.
I ‘ll tell you how it goes.

Today I drove through the back gate of Ft. Myer, something I’ve done a few thousand times in the past twenty-eight years. Today however, I had one of those crossovers through the nexus that most people refer to as memories. Perhaps it was the angle of the sunlight on the guard shack where the two Military Police (MPs) were standing, perhaps it was the smell of the spring air - all I know is one moment I was driving through the gate to visit the retirement office and the next I was nineteen again and passing through the gate in the other direction while the MPs stood gaping with their mouths open.

I don’t recall what was wrong with my car on that day in 1981, but three of my friends and I were in a quandry over how we would get to SCA fighter practice in Fall’s Church. Neither Ken nor Tim had a car, mine was out of commission for some reason, and Jeff, well Jeff had a little green Triumph Spitfire with two seats and a micro trunk. So the four of us stood by his car in the parking lot scratching our heads and trying to figure out how to stuff four armor bags into a space made for one. It didn’t work. I am a master packer, but I couldn’t get more than the shields and a few pieces of loose armor into that miniscule space.

I don’t recall if it was one person in particular or more of a group think moment, but before long we had our solution. We put the shields in the trunk along with what few swords would fit and donned the rest of our armor. Jeff was driving (in armor), Tim sat in the front seat (in armor) and Ken and I sat on the trunk of the car with our legs crammed in the tight space behind the passenger seats. We each held a pole weapon and a greatsword with points skyward as Jeff pulled out, stopping only to raise the visor on his Spangen helm so that he could at least pretend to be able to see where he was going.

There were no seat belt laws in Virginia that we knew of in 1981, but there were definitely seat laws. Only two of us actually had seats. There surely must have been a law about driving with little ability to turn one’s head. I recall that we all expected to be stopped by the MPs at the gate, but as we approached, the two on duty turned to look at us and gaped with mouths open as we passed. I have a vague recollection of having to dismount to leave post, but perhaps I am confusing that with what I thought we should have done at the time.

I clearly recall driving all the way to Syr Strykar’s house in Falls Church with the four of us chanting and singing and screaming and causing quite a commotion. We passed several police cars but they just gaped and watched us drive by. I guess it was a simpler time then. Today there would probably be SWAT teams and take downs and guys in white coats with padded ambulances.

As I drove through the gate this morning and had the rapid flashback, I actually toyed with the idea of recreating the event just to test the theory. I wonder what would happen…?

What fun we had! Cutting and lopping and panting and puffing.

First we started removing all the branches that we could with the loppers in order to reduce the overall weight of the trees and to make room to get the saw in. I have plans for the cedar so I only cut it into manageable lengths rather than into short logs. My son might argue that my definition of manageable and his are somewhat different, but he was a real trooper and stayed with me right to the end.

You might notice that the tree is somewhat…larger…than we are. But I figured, even without a chainsaw, we could do it in oh…a few days or so. I had no idea my son would work so diligently. If there were a merit badge for perseverance, he would definitely have earned it. After we removed many of the smaller branches with the lopper, we still had to take the inch and a half to two inch branches off with the bow saw. The wood was green (okay red) so it wasn’t the easiest cut but it did go pretty smoothly, and we had most of the branches removed in about an hour.

Here’s a pic of us removing many of the branches near the base of the four trees.

Admittedly, they weren’t huge trees, only about as big around as our legs near the base, but when you only have a 24 inch long bow saw…they were big enough.  I realized after the trees were down that the roots were dead, and that there wouldn’t have been anything I could have done to save them…but you come explain that…I dare not try.

And one after we have most of the small branches removed.

Getting the stump out of the ground, even though most of the roots were dead, was the hardest part of all.  Teamwork, shovels, the lopper and a whole lot of grunting, eventually removed it, though we had to wait until Sunday when friends were over so that five of us could lift it and carry it into the woods.

 All that remains is the gaping maw that once held the roots…a reminder that I still have to fill in the hole, which incidentally is another thing my wife would like me to do.  In truth, she carted most of the branches away while my son and I carried the logs.  She also filled in much of the hole, though I’ll have to find dirt from elsewhere in the yard to fill it up the rest of the way.   This is now officially registered as project number 136 on my “Honey Do” list, which I put at around….June.  

“Oh, look at that tree in the backyard honey, you better do something to it before it falls over,” my wife said Saturday morning.

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Maybe you could cut some branches off of it or something, it’s leaning pretty far,” she added.

“Uh-huh,” I added, wisely.

Four hours later, after working in the basement, framing some more shower walls, working on the pocket door, (whoever invented that modern space saving miracle is a genius, but not a proponent of “easy to assemble”), and generally doing everything except look at the tree, I wandered outside. It would be easy to say that I went outside to look at the tree, but in fact, I had forgotten completely about the tree.

I had actually gone out to get the roto-tiller from the shed and to try and start it. Since it is technically still winter and the roto-tiller hasn’t had a tune up yet, starting it was likely impossible (a theory that was eventually proved), but I did manage to stretch my right arm to be somewhat longer than my left. This is of course, what several hundred increasingly frustrated yanks on the starter cord of a mid-winter resting roto-tiller will create. That, and an absolute obliviousness to everything in close proximity.

So my loving wife, and, I should insert here in case she reads this, very wise woman that she is comes outside and asks “did that tree fall down?” (I emphasize down here because she didn’t really ask if it fell down, but whether it fell down). Now I hadn’t even noticed the tree, even though it was twenty-five feet long and lying horizontal on the grass not ten feet from where I was yanking on the roto-tiller cord, but her emphasis on down confused me. Helpful husband that I am, and confused over her question, I laughed and replied, “no sweetheart…the wind blew it down.”

“Really?” she asked.

“NO not really!” I said, “of course it fell down, what do you think?”

“I thought maybe you cut it down,” she said. I looked down at the roto-tiller. She has been known to hand me the flat tip screwdriver when I ask for a phillips…but cutting down a tree with a roto-tiller? More confusion. I looked up at her.

“I can’t believe that tree fell down,” she said. I love this woman! I looked at her. I looked at the tree. It was lying in the yard roots akimbo, never to reach up towards the sky again and she couldn’t believe it had fallen down.

“Well sweetheart,” I said rather mockingly (though with a great deal of love), “there it is! Proof that it fell down.” I smiled at her. She laughed, then she gave me that coy wife smile that is usually reserved for the “I’m not going to say I told you so but I told you so discussion…”

“See what happens when you don’t listen to your wife?” She walked away, leaving me staring at the four eight to ten inch thick cedar trees that spouted from the same root at about two feet above the ground…er beside the root.

I went to get the chainsaw to begin the hard labor of rendering the tree movable, but since it is technically midwinter and the chainsaw….OH NO…I’m not falling for THAT twice. I didn’t even bother trying. Instead, I went and got the next next best thing to a chainsaw…my fifteen year old son and a bow saw…what fun we had.

Pictures and the rest of the story to follow.