ATTACK OF THE TREE

Last night I went to bed early and left my son and several of his buddies drinking out on the deck. I was just getting into some good REMs when the whole house shook and an awful racket jerked me straight up in bed. I thought a car had ran off the road and slammed into the house or that something had exploded! Scared the hell out of me, let me tell you.

I ran outside to find chaos! The boys were crawling around and getting up from various places in the yard where they had landed. They said they heard a sound like a shotgun blast and dove out of the way when the saw what was happening. Half of a giant oak tree had broken and smashed down onto the deck where they were sitting. There was lumber and tree debris everywhere, it looked like a tornado had hit! Thank God one of guys didn’t get killed.

The porch swing and its frame were in multiple pieces, there’s no way either one of them can be savaged. The tree broke in two when it hit the swing frame. Part of it speared through several floorboards of the deck while the rest of it smooshed (that’s right, smooshed, it’s a favorite word of the grandson) a cooler, a table, and a metal lawn chair.

Now I’ve got a hole in my deck with jagged boards sticking up in the air, two uprights sporting pointy nails but no crossbar and what used to be a very nice porch swing and several items of what used to be lawn furniture but now resembles some kind of twisted modern art. The tree is still on top of this mess because it’s so heavy that the guys couldn’t move it.

Chane is black and blue and has a nice collection of scrapes and skinned places all down his back. The other two guys are OK, just shook up. I’m so lucky that no one got seriously injured. Property can be replaced, but people can’t. It would have been so easy for one of them to have gotten killed.

I’m calling the tree people the first chance I get. That sucker is history; I’m having it cut down to the ground!! Maybe it’ll be an example to the other trees before they decide to attack too. I sure hope so, I'm in the middle of 2 acres of trees and they've got me outnumbered!!!