To everything,
Turn, turn, turn
There is a season,
Turn, turn, turn
It’s wood season in the Adirondacks. Chopping it,
splitting it, burning it…it gets more attention than
many spouses.
I never realized how much trees and, more
specifically, wood, was a part of our lives until I was
living in Adirondack Park. The word “Adirondack”
itself translates from the Mohawk tribe’s language
to mean “Eater of trees.”
Whether it’s twig decorations, log cabins or rustic
McMansions, so much is built from trees and wood
up here.
That includes the good old English language.
Yep. When you think about it, (as only idea-starved
writers do), you’ll be amazed…okay maybe not
amazed, perhaps slightly amused, at how many of
the words we use each day are plucked from trees
and wood(or so it seems), providing more than
oxygen and souvenir salt and pepper shakers.
They’ve created a lexicon all their own. Check it out:
When a performer’s act is over, what do they do?
He or she LEAVES the stage.
And when I get a new Duluth Trading catalogue in
the mail I might LEAF through it.
Take any yoga class and one of the first things you’ll
be instructed to do is something called a PLANK.
Big banks like Bank of America can’t have
headquarters in every city under the sun, so they
have BRANCHES.
It’s absolutely astonishing what orthopedic
medicine is doing with prosthetic LIMBS these days.
My grandson told me elephants like to travel
because they have TRUNKS. I told him, no,
that’s what they go swimming in!
My dogs BARK…at anything.
One of my neighbors, Cal, has a bum leg, so instead
of walking, he LUMBERS.
His wife, Evelyn, is a huge Facebook fan. I find her
on there whenever I LOG on.
After a long hike, you can almost sit and watch my
calves KNOT up in front of your eyes.
My cousin, Peter, once did one of those DNA tests
to investigate our ROOTS.
He told me confidentially that he found a lot of
crazies in our family TREE.
My sister-in-law will believe anything. She’s such a
SAP.
I love to NEEDLE her about that
The only Christmas music I can stand to listen to is
sung by BURL Ives.
Sometimes I’m humbled to think that, with this
column, the FRUITS of my labor might end up lining
the bottom of a bird cage.
My cousin, Owen, and his wife, Melody, make an
odd sort of couple. He’s kind of a STUMP of a guy
and she’s such a TWIG.
They’re huge New York Jets fans, and PINE for a
winning season.
A few years back, the Jets held one in the PALMS of
their hands and blew it.
Once in a while, I have the tendency to take a
simple concept like this and beat it to a PULP.
Okay, okay…you get the idea. And there are more
words that emerge from those dense providers of
shade, baseball bats and end tables. Feel free to
think of others…it’s fun!
Now many folks might read this column and think
that I took the easy way out. That a column about
words doesn’t constitute a real column of words.
They might say I didn’t give this week’s submission
much thought…just slapped it together and ran.
Such accusations go against my GRAIN and attack
the very FIBER of my being.