Tailgating to the music of a chainsaw

We were shocked this week when our next door neighbor’s father-in-law knocked on the door during a rather gentle rain storm to report that a huge oak tree on their property had just toppled over, falling all the way to the street and doing minimal damage to our yard other than our poor forsythia bush which still lies underneath it.

A little background: The boy living there now is my daughter’s age. He was born when his family lived in that house. Our yappy dachshund pointed out the fact that the baby was profoundly deaf because he never even stirred as she barked incessantly just under his nursery window.

The little boy received help from the earliest age to help him deal with his hearing deficiency. He did the things other kids did, always loving things with engines that went fast. He was operating a lawn mover from the time he could barely walk. He even swam on the neighborhood swim team, necessitating a starter who could give hand signals.

He’s now married and has a child and they live in his family’s original house. Although I haven’t met his wife, I wonder if she can hear. I wonder about their baby. I wonder who heard the tree come down or was it a vibration that everyone felt?



Today I had planned to work out of the back of my car to bag up 125 pounds of couscous for our CSA. It was supposed to be a quiet fall day with just a little breeze. Instead the morning was punctuated by the sound of a chain saw as the boy took on the daunting task of cutting up the fallen tree.



It was interesting that his morning had the look and feel of my envisioned morning because he couldn’t hear the chain saw that he so deftly wielded.

It was still a nice day to bag the couscous despite the demolition next door.