Up in the treetop

When I was a kid, I was always climbing trees. If you needed to find me, just look up. I was likely to be as high up as I could manage. I was a little monkey, but A LOT less graceful.


We lived on a dirt road in between suburban cities. Last dirt road within miles. There were four houses on our block, if you can call it that. One was my granparent's, the next was where my grampa grew up but was now owned by a non-relative, the next in line was a cousin's, and then my house. If you hadn't guessed, we lived very close to our grandparents.


So our school bus would come down our dirt road and pick us up at my house. Because we lived in a cold climate state and had to face the eliments, my parents built us a busstop shelter. Really, tho, it was a light salmon painted out-house. As we got older, we'd sooner face the elements than be caught inside it.


One spring in the 80's, while me and the neighbor boy (no relation) were awaiting the bus's arrival, I of course, was climbing a tree - I mean, what else would I be doing? These were the days when Zubas, diaper pants, hammer pants, parachute pants (call them what you will) were in style (you with me?). As the bus was approaching, I attempted to jump from the tree in my graceful style. My baggy bottoms got snagged on a branch part way down and not only ripped my pants, but held me dangling from the tree as the bus driver approached. I finally managed to get down and the driver was kind enough to wait while I ran inside and changed.


Luckily for me, we were the first pickup on the route. Even so, the neighbor boy witnessed it and I was horribly em-bare-assed.