Palm tree jungle gym

When we lived with Uncle Scott in La Palma, the palm tree in the front yard was my jungle gym.

It was small for a palm tree, about the same height as the two-story house. And it had reeeeeally big leaves. Bigger than my whole body.

The trunk was about the size of my waist and the skin was smooth but textured. Perfect for climbing. I liked to hook my arms around the trunk, and walk my way up the tree like a monkey. And when I got to the top, I’d jump down onto the cushy grass and roll, like they do in kung-fu movies.

Our palm tree also dropped little seeds about the size of a G.I. Joe head. Sometimes my cousins and I grabbed handfuls of these seeds and went to war using these as ammunition. They were light, so they didn’t hurt when you got hit. Well, not too much.

Every year, when summer came around, the perky green leaves would start to wither and droop. Sometimes the big leaves hung so low that they touched the ground. Cousin Doug and Dennis showed me how to make good use of this.

Because the stems of the leaves were still attached to the trunk, my cousins realized that we could swing from them. After watching them go a few times, I got the hang of it.

First, I grabbed a leaf as high up on it as I could, and walked around the tree a few times. Then running really fast, I jumped up and away from the tree so that the leaf became taut while I was in the air. And with enough speed, the leaf would unwind itself and swing me in circles around the trunk. We even competed to see who could be flung the farthest when they let go of the leaf in mid-air. As I remember, that was a dangerous contest because at the end of our small yard was a concrete sidewalk.