Ten years old. Still innocent. Certainly naive. We moved from the house in which I grew up at 3814 West Rogers Avenue to Mondawmin Avenue, a neighborhood called Windsor Hills. There was a good sized tree (or so it seemed) in the front yard of Rogers Ave. My brother and I believed there was a secret door in the tree which only we could open. Inside was a wooden horse which we took out of the tree and set on the lawn, then spent the rest of the day hammering precious jewels into its wooden hide. When I was little we were surrounded by woods. When we left the neighborhood our old house was surrounded by single family, brick, row houses, hundreds of them, one of them, the Spradbrows', a gentile family, that invited us in to see their dazzling Christmas tree, and whose daughter, Shirley, was our babysitter. One time Shirley fell asleep and my parents had to take off the front door to get in. Where they got the tools I don't know because I never saw my father with a tool in his hand - a newspaper, a crab mallet, a can of Gunther beer, a pencil, yes, but never a hammer or screwdriver.
Mondawmin Avenue was a little more open plus we had a lengthy back yard that ended in the woods. The yard was bordered along both sides with hedges, so there was a lot of privacy. There was also a dirt embankment down there which took a pounding from all the rocks we tossed at it as grenades and bombs in our war games. Our yard had been cleared all the way down, but there was a single tree. I don't know why the developer left it, but there it stood. I can't say what kind but it was substantial, maybe, oak, but that's a guess, an educated guess because a lot of squirrels scampered around that tree, and I could see a squirrel's nest near the top. Acorns would have sealed it for me, but it was not their time of year. Many times I found myself at that tree and just sat down.
On this particular day, as I walked by the tree, there was an inordinate amount of chattering and scampering, up, down, around. Something was going on. Chatter. Jump. Scratch. Hang on. From this distance it seems to me they were circling the trunk over and over. I watched for awhile trying to figure this out when, just for the hell of it, I began making the chattering sound myself. Damn if one squirrel didn't stop mid trunk and stare in my direction, at me, I was sure. I froze. I stared back. It chattered. I chattered. We chattered back and forth as it slowly descended the tree and inched across the grass in my direction. I don't know what I said, but, whatever it was, that squirrel obviously liked my point of view. It sniffed my sneaker then crawled up my pant leg and settled on my shoulder. Settled on my shoulder!
And sat there for a very long time before it scampered down my leg and back to the tree. The thing is, I could never do this again. For weeks I chattered my heart out, hoping, expecting...Nothing ever again. Even now when I spot a squirrel I begin to chatter like it's a second language, and, sometimes, sometimes the squirrel to which I'm talking stops and gives me a look, but then quickly decides it has better things to do. As do I.
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