"The Christmas Tree"

DATELINE: 12/01/2011
RE: "The Christmas Tree"


When I was a boy growin up on the old Biggers' farm in Nankipooh, we always cut a tree off of our land to use as a Christmas tree. Now we had lots of different trees to choose from, but we always had a cedar tree for our Christmas tree. One year when I was about fifteen, I had spotted a perfect tree up by the main road that was just the right shape and size, so I asked my Grandpa about cuttin it. He said no, since that he could see it from the house, he wanted it to stay there, and I should go further back in the woods behind the house and get one from back there.

Well a couple of days later I was huntin quail out in the little valley between the house and the main road with my old single shot, 16 gauge shotgun. Now I'll tell you that you have to be a pretty good shot if you want to eat quail when you hunt with a single shot, and no bird-dog. Well I ain't braggin, but I ate a lot of quail back in those days. About this time I happened to look up on the ridge where the main road was, and I saw a wagon pulled over and a man and a couple of kids standin next to that pretty little cedar tree that my Grandpa wouldn't let me cut.

I walked up there just about the time the man hit that tree the first lick with his ax. I said, "sure is a pretty tree ain't it?" Well the man was in his mid thirties, and his boys were about seven and nine. He says, "Yeah its mighty pretty, and we are goin to use it for our Christmas tree." Then I said, "reckon whose land this is?" and he says, "I don't know." About then, I pointed that old single shot 16 right at his belly and said, "Well this is our land, and since you done started cuttin, you might as well finish up, and we will be havin that tree for our Christmas, and then you and your young-uns can git and don't come back!"

Well that tree did make a mighty pretty tree for our Christmas, but Grandpa always was a little sad that he couldn't see it from the front porch, standin tall on the ridge up by the road.

Now folks, there is a lotta people in this old world that are willin to come and take what is yours, without sayin howdy do. We got plenty up there in DC that keeps takin more and more from us, and they don't seem to be able to stop. That's one reason that old Bascomb is runnin for President, because I aim to stop at least some of the takin, and I don't need my old single shot 16 gauge to do it.

"Now, that's the way I see it, and you can tell'em I said so!"

Bascomb Biggers