To all my blogger friends in Australia: Baino, Arija, Bimbimbie, Lavender, Pam, Rich, Winterwood and Anon, (please see my sidebar for links) I hope you are safe from the bush fires. My condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones especially the children.
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Trees and Heights
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I think a child should have at least one chance to climb a tree. Growing up, I thought our neighbor was wealthy because he had a lot of trees in his backyard. It was almost an orchard with trees heavy with fruits. We only had one jackfruit tree in front of the house where I was born. It was a dysfunctional tree. It grew diagonally and was very skinny. I climbed the neighbors' trees and the trees at school. This was a time when children were allowed to be children and no one sued anybody because their child fell from the tree. Later when we moved to the suburbs, Mother filled our lot with trees. We even had an acacia tree. There were so many trees that no one can see our house from the street. We had avocado, starapple, mango, santol, atimoya, coconut, jackfruit, guava trees. She cycled the planting of trees so that when one tree would go past its maturity, another will take its place. We had a banana grove and rows of datiles trees that I loved to climb. I was a champion tree climber. I was not afraid of heights as long as there were branches. I am however, afraid of heights from buildings and rooftop edges.
