Anonymous Poster
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- Sep 27, 2005
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I don't know what practical purpose chinaberries serve, unless it's just to make more chinaberry trees. For all I know they could be edible. Or maybe they are a delicacy for birds.Who knows. But when I was growing up, they served one purpose and one purpose only. To make someone squeal in pain.
We had a massive chinaberry tree in the back yard. Had the somewhat dubious honor of owning the only one on the block. It was a beautiful tree with slender leafy branches that provided a wonderful shade. It was taking advantage of that shade that led to the idea to gather up the fallen chinaberries, filling pockets, t shirt tails, empty bottles, whatever was available, and chunking them at each other with all the gleeful evil abandon that only kids can muster.
I'm sure we didn't invent the idea. Kids for hundreds of years have probably been chunking these lemon drop sized seeds at each other on countless summer days gone by. But that didn't stop us from getting creative to the point of being dangerous with them.
When a chinaberry hit you full force anywhere above the neck, it would make you cry, (at least me anyway) and then it would make you mad, causing you to spend valuable ducking time searching out and aiming for the guilty party. A chinaberry hitting you anywhere below the neck was bad, but tolerable. It always left a mark, a little red welt and usually a little green stain as well.
You could always spot a rookie. He would throw handfulls at a time. Sure he hit more targets, but this practice also left him sadly un-armed when the paybacks came, and they always came. We all started out as rookies of course so we all learned that lesson the hard way. There was no more frightening and vulnerable feeling than crossing the yard at break neck speed, squatting under the tree with no protection and gathering up chinaberries to replenish your supply, all while being pelted mercilessly by the competition.
How did one win? Well, being the only one left standing and not crying or mad was usually a pretty good indicator. Any one who stormed into the house with the ominous...'I'm telling' thrown over their shoulder, was automatically disqualified from any hope of winning. Also breaking away from chinaberries and resorting to other types of ammunition, like rocks, for example, was seriously frowned on and would get you thrown out of the game.
There were some fairly respectable ground rules, learned through trial and error. However, we had not counted on Johnny Small. Johnny was a new kid. His name suited him to a tee as, while he was the same age thereabouts as every one else, he was a full head shorter than the rest of us, and as a result had learned to compensate in many areas for his lack of height.
He was as welcome as a fresh spring rain when he wandered past the house wanting to get in the game. New meat. No idea of the rules or strategy. He looked like a full fisted thrower if anybody ever did. Yeehaw!
Just as anticipated, and even though we gave him a full five minute lead to fill his pockets and find good cover, he went through his reserves in less than ten minutes. Which gave him no option but to run the gauntlet to re-load, and we peppered him. Brutally. Most kids learned from that experience and didn't let it happen again. Johnny not only learned, he set us up for the most devastating revenge ever heard of on Florence Street.
I got my first clue when a chinaberry hit the tree I was using for cover and smashed like a well cooked pea against the bark. Oh hell, I thought, this kid's got an arm like a rocket launcher! The next clue was hearing Danny Golden scream out in pain like a little girl. He was crying for God's sake. This was unprecedented chinaberry war behavior. I had seen Danny Golden get ripped up by Ronnie Barr's dog and not cry.
I finally gathered the courage to raise my head and see what was causing this wailing and spotted Johnny Small, standing alone and looking ten feet tall, chinaberries causing the pockets of his jeans to bulge, a chinaberry ready in one hand, and a sling shot in the other. Crap!
Who would have thought anybody would have to be told that slingshots were an unfair advantage! The best we could do was cower behind our respective sheilds and scream for my mother, who I might add, took her sweet old time getting out there, all while Johnny was ricocheting chinaberries off tree trunks, slamming them into bushes and firing them wherever else he thought that there was the slightest chance that he might make contact. Mom appraised the situation in a glance, and disarmed Johnny with one withering look.
Danny waited until the screen door slammed behind mom before he sailed across the yard, arms flailing like a windmill in a tornado and pounded Johnny until he screamed for mercy, while one of the other boys quickly dispatched the tree branch and inner tube sling shot into splinters with a rock.
Danny had a nasty bruise and a cut where the chinaberry had actually broken the skin, and while the rest of us found it in our hearts to forget and accept Johnny Small into our group, Danny never did quite make that leap of forgiveness.
We had a massive chinaberry tree in the back yard. Had the somewhat dubious honor of owning the only one on the block. It was a beautiful tree with slender leafy branches that provided a wonderful shade. It was taking advantage of that shade that led to the idea to gather up the fallen chinaberries, filling pockets, t shirt tails, empty bottles, whatever was available, and chunking them at each other with all the gleeful evil abandon that only kids can muster.
I'm sure we didn't invent the idea. Kids for hundreds of years have probably been chunking these lemon drop sized seeds at each other on countless summer days gone by. But that didn't stop us from getting creative to the point of being dangerous with them.
When a chinaberry hit you full force anywhere above the neck, it would make you cry, (at least me anyway) and then it would make you mad, causing you to spend valuable ducking time searching out and aiming for the guilty party. A chinaberry hitting you anywhere below the neck was bad, but tolerable. It always left a mark, a little red welt and usually a little green stain as well.
You could always spot a rookie. He would throw handfulls at a time. Sure he hit more targets, but this practice also left him sadly un-armed when the paybacks came, and they always came. We all started out as rookies of course so we all learned that lesson the hard way. There was no more frightening and vulnerable feeling than crossing the yard at break neck speed, squatting under the tree with no protection and gathering up chinaberries to replenish your supply, all while being pelted mercilessly by the competition.
How did one win? Well, being the only one left standing and not crying or mad was usually a pretty good indicator. Any one who stormed into the house with the ominous...'I'm telling' thrown over their shoulder, was automatically disqualified from any hope of winning. Also breaking away from chinaberries and resorting to other types of ammunition, like rocks, for example, was seriously frowned on and would get you thrown out of the game.
There were some fairly respectable ground rules, learned through trial and error. However, we had not counted on Johnny Small. Johnny was a new kid. His name suited him to a tee as, while he was the same age thereabouts as every one else, he was a full head shorter than the rest of us, and as a result had learned to compensate in many areas for his lack of height.
He was as welcome as a fresh spring rain when he wandered past the house wanting to get in the game. New meat. No idea of the rules or strategy. He looked like a full fisted thrower if anybody ever did. Yeehaw!
Just as anticipated, and even though we gave him a full five minute lead to fill his pockets and find good cover, he went through his reserves in less than ten minutes. Which gave him no option but to run the gauntlet to re-load, and we peppered him. Brutally. Most kids learned from that experience and didn't let it happen again. Johnny not only learned, he set us up for the most devastating revenge ever heard of on Florence Street.
I got my first clue when a chinaberry hit the tree I was using for cover and smashed like a well cooked pea against the bark. Oh hell, I thought, this kid's got an arm like a rocket launcher! The next clue was hearing Danny Golden scream out in pain like a little girl. He was crying for God's sake. This was unprecedented chinaberry war behavior. I had seen Danny Golden get ripped up by Ronnie Barr's dog and not cry.
I finally gathered the courage to raise my head and see what was causing this wailing and spotted Johnny Small, standing alone and looking ten feet tall, chinaberries causing the pockets of his jeans to bulge, a chinaberry ready in one hand, and a sling shot in the other. Crap!
Who would have thought anybody would have to be told that slingshots were an unfair advantage! The best we could do was cower behind our respective sheilds and scream for my mother, who I might add, took her sweet old time getting out there, all while Johnny was ricocheting chinaberries off tree trunks, slamming them into bushes and firing them wherever else he thought that there was the slightest chance that he might make contact. Mom appraised the situation in a glance, and disarmed Johnny with one withering look.
Danny waited until the screen door slammed behind mom before he sailed across the yard, arms flailing like a windmill in a tornado and pounded Johnny until he screamed for mercy, while one of the other boys quickly dispatched the tree branch and inner tube sling shot into splinters with a rock.
Danny had a nasty bruise and a cut where the chinaberry had actually broken the skin, and while the rest of us found it in our hearts to forget and accept Johnny Small into our group, Danny never did quite make that leap of forgiveness.
