One Arm

We planted Christmas trees this weekend.

 

Or as I call it, Opportunity #712 to try and kill myself.

 

For your folks who have followed my adventures the last few years, you know that I have come face-to-face with the Grim Reaper on many occasions. He has been trying to catch me so he could add another notch to his staff.

 

But, not today Satan. Not today.

 

For you non-holiday tree planting experts out there, let me share how it’s done.

 

Step number one: do whatever my wife tells me to do. Honestly, that’s rule number one everyday!

 

The ‘other’ rule number one is go pick up the trees. We used to drive up to this place near Macon to get the trees, but that place went out of business.

 

Now we get them closer to home so we save a whole butt-load of money in gas while pulling the horse trailer home.

 

I think we get about 8 mpg pulling that butt-load of trees. I used butt-lows twice and for you non-country folk that means a lot!

 

It’s when we get them home that the real fun begins. Not fun like laying on the beach in Cancun sipping on a margarita. More like the fun you have working on a chain gang.

 

My beautiful wife is adamant that her trees are planted in straight lines, like graph paper.

 

“If it’s not a right angle, it’s a wrong angle.”

 

She doesn’t say that but I know that is what she means. This is confirmed by the steely stare I get when I am not marking every tree exactly at seven feet apart.

 

Exactly!

 

To get those 7×7 grids absolute perfect requires a lot of work. And several slipped discs.

 

She has an elaborate system of marking the trees which starts with a long ‘measuring’ stick. She somehow gets the four corners of the grid in place- it’s like voodoo how she does it. I can’t explain it and even if I could, I can’t explain it.

 

Trade secret.

 

This ‘system’ includes lots of bending over, moving the measuring pole, pulling strings and hammering in stakes.

 

It is about this time that I begin to wish that Jesus would just go ahead and call me home. But He never does.

 

It’s like that verse from 2 Corinthians where Peter writes, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.”

 

Bending over and pounding those stakes a few hundred times definitely keeps one humble.

 

Once the stakes are in place, string is run all around until we have a ‘perfect’ 7×7 grid spray painted on the ground. (*refer to paragraph 11 above)

 

By the time this is finished, I am usually laying in my back in the dirt, writhing in pain and pleading with God to send a lightning bolt from Heaven to end my misery.

 

I think He laughs at this request as all the cloud above me suddenly clear up.

 

When the hole locations are complete, then you have to pull everything up and move to the next field.

 

It’s sorta’ like building a house just so you know where your recliner is going sit. And then tearing it all down and starting somewhere else.

 

This misery doesn’t just affect me. I don’t know how many lidocaine patches I stuck on my wife’s back this weekend but I’m pretty sure she exceeded the recommendations on the package.

 

By Saturday night, she can no longer feel her legs.

 

And this is where the real fun begins. And you just thought all that bending over and pounding was a party!

 

This is when the holes must be dug. Or dugged? Who knows what the correct vernacular is?

 

For years, we have used a hand-held death machine to dig those 6-inch wide by 10-inch deep holes. Most people call it an auger.

 

I call it her getting back at me for everytime I forget to put the toilet seat down.

 

This contraption has a 520cc motor mounted on top with two small handles.

 

Coming out of the motor is a whirling rod of cold steel death that spins at approximately the same RPM of a Ferrari going 200mph.

 

That auger chews up everything in its path. And that includes your limbs if you are not vigilant.

 

I position the auger over the painted mark, hit the throttle and hope that the thing doesn’t spin me around like one of those old-fashioned merry-go-rounds

that we used to play on when I was at Shiver Elementary School.

 

You know the one. Four people get on the ‘platter’ while your so-called friends try to spin the thing so fast, the metal bars you are clutching melt.

 

Usually what happens is the poor little kid who doesn’t have enough upper body strength goes flying head-over-heels into the neighboring monkey bars.

 

I still don’t understand how our teachers just stood back and watched as we murdered our friends.

 

People say ‘things were different back then.’ What they meant was that could you murder your classmate and then go back inside and have lunch.

 

No arrests or prosecutions. Only the strong survived.

 

Anyway, back to the present.

 

When you hit the throttle on that auger, you better have your feet planted solidly on the ground, you’ve got your tightly strained by a mouthguard, and your loins girded.

 

It’s like trying to pet a puma that is suffering from a bad case of PMS.

 

And heaven help you if you happen to hit an errant root while digging that hole. You just make sure your helmet is taut and your jockstrap with the protective cup is synched down really tight.

 

Like Vienna Boys Choir tight!

 

I guess you can still live a productive life is your left arm is ripped away from your body. My old neighbor did.

 

Mr. Clower was a crotchety old dude. For a long time, we’d walk by his little shack at the edge of the road and holler out a friendly hello.

 

His response would be something like Clint Eastwood would say in that movie, Gran Torino.

 

“Get off my lawn!”

 

But then my wife started showing some extra kindness to the old coot. She would take him food and would help him with yard work every now and then and the old geezer started to soften up a bit.

 

He needed help because Mr. Clower only had one arm. Well, that is not exactly the truth. He had one arm and a piece of another.

 

I never found out how he lost most of his left arm. It’s one of those things that you just don’t ask.

 

“Dang, dude! Where’d your arm go?”

 

I knew he had been in WW2 but he told me he was a mechanic so I figured it hadn’t been blown off when he was storming the beaches at Normandy.

 

So, it must have been a domestic accident. Something like using a chain saw.

 

Or an auger.

 

Anyway, as I started digging those holes for the Christmas trees, I thought about my former one-armed neighbor.

 

He had managed to do pretty much everything with just one arm. I went down there one day and Mr. Clower was cutting down a tree with a CHAINSAW.

 

Picture that: 80 year dude with just one arm using a chainsaw. How in the world has he even started it!

 

Needless to say, I took the chainsaw away from him and made him sit down while I finished the job.

 

So, even if the auger went south and decided to rip off one of my arms (or a leg), I could still feed myself.

 

Clower did.

 

So I keep digging. And keep up to date on the latest prosthetics technology because Christmas stops for no man.

 

Not even a man with only one arm!