Page 14 - Demo

14|December 2021
Slippery rock Gazette
O, Christmas Tree! O, Christmas Tree!
How Heisted are Thy Branches!
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Any time my friend Paul Shaw passes an overgrown field in December — a field awash in tall, tan sage grass and studded with green cedars — he can’t help but wonder if all the trees are firmly attached to the ground.
To understand the signifi- cance of his thought process, you need to turn back the calendar to the mid-1960s. That’s when Shaw, who now lives in rural Roane County, was a high school kid grow- ing up near Auburn, Alabama.
Shaw and a buddy, Tom Richbourgh, had spotted a bushy, perfectly shaped, 8-foot -tall cedar growing in a field that was adjacent to a coun- try road. In keeping with the spirit of the season, ahem, they decided to steal it.
“I had a ’53 Chevy we called the ‘Brown Bomb’,” said Shaw. “I parked on the other side of the field, got a bow saw out of the trunk, and me and Tom headed out for it.”
The theft was progressing smoothly until two situations occurred at the same moment: (1) the tree began to topple and (2) a car approached.
“It was the landowner, driving slow,” said Shaw. “I guess he’d seen the Brown Bomb and was wondering whose car it was and what they were up to.
Sam Venable
Department of Irony
“The sage grass was waist- high, and we were able to hunkerdowninit.Butthetree was about to fall. So we each stuck out an arm and held it in place. Thankfully, the guy didn’t notice. He kept going ’til he drove out of sight.”
Figuring they had dodged trouble, the boys claimed their purloined treasure and began dragging it across the field. Then they heard the car once more.
“He was driving back the other way,” said Shaw, “so we dropped into the grass again.”
The sage grass may have hidden two prone teenagers, but not a bulging, horizontal tree. Thus, they stood it back up, just as the car putt-putted into view.
“Our skinny ol’ arms and hands were holding the trunk as tight as we could,” he chuckled. “We were tryin’
our best not to make the tree shake.”
No, the tree didn’t shake, but it did draw the attention of the driver. He stopped and stared intently.
Why?
“There wasn’t another tree anywhere around us!” Shaw exclaimed. “I reckon he was wonderin’ where in the world that thing came from. But he wasn’t curious enough to get out of his car and come over for a look. After a minute or so, he drove off.
“Just to make sure he wasn’t waitin’ for us, Tom belly-crawled to the road. Whenhemotionedthecoast was clear, I grabbed the tree and we got out of there.”
All of which begs the ques- tion: Why steal a cedar tree in the first place?
“The thrill of the chase,” Paul replied. “I’m sure any- body would’ve let us have all the cedar trees we could cut. But for teenage boys, this was like watermelons: stolen ones always taste sweetest.”
Sam Venable is an author, comedic entertainer, and humor columnist for the Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel. His latest book is “The Joke’s on YOU! (All I Did Was Clean Out My Files).” He may be reached at sam.venable@outlook. com.
“Christmas ghosts? Did Halloween and Christmas merge or something?”
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