Devonne Brown

The Mighty Oak

Although it is true that it looked easy, swinging off a rope ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. It takes more engineering and logic than some people have to make it work right. 

 When the dirt road was eye level to the best swinging branch of the giant oak tree, Alan and I took that as a sign. We were going to make the best swinging rope from the best swinging branch ever. From the road to the base of the tree was about fifty feet. If it had been a pond, it would have been the perfect swing and splash. It wasn’t a pond though, it was a hill, complete with brush, briars, rocks, and poisons oak and ivy. 

Of course it had daisies and lots of legendary Queen Anne’s lace, the big white flower made of clusters of little white flowers with a center crimson petals. The crimson petals are where the legendary drops of the queen’s blood were absorbed when she pricked her finger with the royal needle as she embroidered the lace. 

We had a sturdy rope, a very heavy one that smelled like hay and was at least an inch thick. Alan used his certified “Tenderfoot,” beginner Boy Scout skills and status with much pomp and circumstance to tie the rope around a big, broken foot and a half length of limb. We took turns throwing it like a javelin in hopes of getting it across the swinging branch and into a useful position for our rope. 

Imagine our surprise when the plan actually worked. We tied the rope around both the tree and Alan. Not only was he a Tenderfoot, he was a gentleman. He had to be sure the course was safe and be the wayfinder. He went first.

Choosing the Carol Burnett “Tarzan” wail over the also popular “Geronimo!” he lept off of the cliff of the road in an attempt to swing over the ravine to the base of the tree. He had no vertical lift. Instead he went crashing, and screaming, at a dead run, holding tight to that rope, to keep him upright while he finished his brush slapping plough into the tree trunk.

And it was all slo mo.

Rather than let him see me laugh, I slid down the hill on my butt in sympathy. When I landed at the base of the tree, we simultaneously collapsed into fits of laughter, and laughed and laughed for a long time until we agreed that we were stupid and that we had learned a valuable lesson. “We needed a much shorter rope.”