RIDING DOWN TREES
By Claude Jones
Jackie’s father, Big Jack Leach, had taken a job at the feed mill in town. He sold his cows, except one old Guernsey he kept to supply his family with milk and butter. He rented his big cotton patch (about 8 acres) to our neighbor, Mr. Earnest Graham. No one wanted the small three-acre hillside patch behind the barn lot.
The unattended small patch soon was dotted with small trees. Oaks, ash and sweet gums thrived on the red clay soil that sloped sharply toward a small creek. The hillside seeped water from underground springs and provided the trees' tap roots with constant moisture and nourishment.
Jackie at 14 was the ringleader of our neighborhood gang. He was full of fun ideas that provided adventure and entertainment for us younger boys, who before the days of cable television, video games and organized ball, roamed the woods, creeks and fields of the community in search of fun.
The young trees growing on the slope behind the Leach’s barn, especially the ones on the top of the arced terrace on the hillside became an object of our constant attempt to avoid boredom during our time away from milking, hoeing cotton or corn and hauling hay.
Climbing the small trees was no great task for us. Our bare feet hardened by the graveled roads and clods of plowed fields gripped the trees like the clawed paws of coons or possums. We climbed to the top of the trees, hung on with our hands and threw our bodies out by kicking off the treetop with our feet. The trees would bend with our weight and we would ride down, hanging on with our hands to a soft landing on the low side of the terrace. Upon landing we turned loose of the tree and let it spring back, almost straight up and down.
Riding down the trees was great fun and we became so proficient at it we could hang on with one hand during the ride down. The ash saplings proved to have the best spring and were subject to many rides before becoming permanently bent.
We became bolder and bolder with our tree riding until the afternoon Jackie climbed a 30-foot tall sweet gum and yelled for us all to watch. With a mighty push of his feet he launched himself straight out from the tree. It was to be the longest and best ride of all. We heard a loud snap and saw the terror in Jackie’s face. The top 10-feet of the sweet gum tree had broken out. Jackie fell and hit the ground with a loud thud. We started to Jackie with a quick step, but stopped as the tree top, slowed by the parachute effect of the star shaped sweet gum leaves crashed onto Jackie’s prone body.
We quickly uncovered him and asked if he were hurt. He only grunted and groaned, unable to recover the breath knocked out by the fall. We wished to help but he was the one always in charge. The old gray mule Mr. Jack had kept to plow his garden came across the lot and hung his head over the fence. I wondered if he were concerned about Jackie or if he longed for the tender sweet gum leaves of the treetop lying just out of his reach.
We lifted as much of Jackie as we could and dragged the rest of him across the barn lot to the back porch of the Leach’s home. We debated if we should run to our house and call Mrs. Louise, who sewed on collars at the shirt factory on College Street. Our debate gave Jackie enough time to recover, somewhat, from his fall and from our recovery effort. Our fears eased. Jackie was not seriously hurt but his crash ended our game of riding down trees.
BIO: Claude Jones
"I was born, raised and lived all my life in Pontotoc, Mississippi. I was raised on a farm where we milked cows, raised cotton, corn, and had a peach orchard. I have worked for Pontototc Electric Power for 31 years. My wife Ann and I have two sons, both are pharmacists, and we have two grandchildren."
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