Like our yard. Photo by Nick Haupt on Unsplash
Mom bought Dad a chainsaw for his birthday when he was 70. He was an outdoor guy who spent all of his spare time in the garden or tending the yard. Dad was the kind of man who, if he wanted something, he bought it even if it was the week before his birthday. Mom had scored with the chainsaw though. He hadn’t thought of that.
Dad read all the instructions, safety precautions, wore the goggles and work gloves, and sharpened the saw when needed. It was his new baby.
Enter the day I get a phone call from Mom, swearing and screaming that I had to get over there RIGHT AWAY as Dad had gone berserk and was cutting down everything in sight. Mom had a creative exaggeration streak so I wasn’t too worried. I calmed her down telling her I’d visit on the weekend. She wasn’t happy with me, grumbling that there wouldn’t be a plant or a tree or maybe even the house there by the time I “graced them” with my presence.
When I did visit, I noticed that all the tree limbs had been cut away to a certain height (about 5’10”), a few small trees were missing and Dad was happily digging the stumps out of the ground. “Good stress relief,” he said as he leaned on his axe and wiped his face. It wasn’t exactly deforestation but it was a big change. Then a few summers later the chainsaw saga continued.
Mom called me with the “we are all going to die” voice, ordered me to get over to their house right away as my Dad was going to kill himself. Once I got her calmed down she told me that my 74 year old Dad was standing on top of his Jeep Cherokee as we spoke, using his chainsaw to take down a limb from the wild cherry tree over their driveway. I could hear her beginning to panic but before I could say anything, she bellowed into the phone, “He’s going to kill himself! Get over here and knock some sense into his hard head!” When he was done, she got him to shimmy off the roof of the Jeep. He didn’t know what the big fuss was all about.
I arrived that afternoon to assess the damage. Dad and I had a discussion and he reluctantly promised to call someone else in the future to trim the tree if he felt like it was dropping too much junk onto the cars. However, his stunt left a huge dent in the roof of the Jeep.
When he finally gave up driving, that Jeep came to me. Just as a lark after it rained, I’d pull up somewhere and hit the headliner hard, popping the indentation out and spilling whatever rainwater had collected onto the street. No end of laughs.
My Mom was a supremely confident woman but sometimes my ultra calm Dad got the best of her nerves. Might be a male/female thing. What do you think? Click the button to leave me a comment. I love to hear from you! Here’s what I think, Zain
