One Big Happy by Rick Detorie for September 20, 2020

Some years ago my daughter had a small limb partially break. She duct taped it back together…And it worked!!!

“Oh, yeah, Hon! Tell your parents we’ll dump the mulch next to your driveway!”

It will be transplanted on a farm upstate.

Oh yeah, the mythical “Happy Acres Farm”!

His face was flushed.

But his broad shoulders saved him.

The tail end of an experiment by Detorie: the saga of Suzette was largely told in dialogue-free strips.

When I maybe 11, I hit a maple sapling with the lawn tractor while mowing; snapped the trunk in two. I ran in the house, got a rag, and bandaged the two pieces together, much to the amusement of one & all.

When I was maybe 60, my parents had to have it removed because its roots were in the sewer.

The lawn (being in Appalachia) is such that both the front door and the back basement door are both ground-level, and it continues thusly, only leveling off about 10’ from the back of the lot. My sure-to-die, ain’t that cute-he-bandaged-it tree stood right where it leveled – and rose above the roof of the (from the back) 3 1/2 story house.

We’re going to take Suzette to meet Mr. Chipper Shredder.

Good way to sooth Ruthie’s feelings on the tree.

Doesn’t that lady know that the tree will grow back if trimmed properly?