The Chicken or the Acorn

You know the old debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg right? Most everyone does. Except for small children of course. They are not meant to understand the many intricacies of life. Its beginning and its ending.

Now I know that the quality of education has deteriorated over the last few decades but this recent event has me wondering. Here’s why.

The other day my son Paul and I were out in the back yard doing some cleaning up the grass, picking up fallen branches and generally clearing weeds and debrie from the beds and surrounding area.

Since it was spring we were noticing that there were a lot of new trees sprouting throughout the beds. As I pulled out a small tree, my wife, who was watching us from the comfort of her chair asked, “Hey what are those plants anyway?” It was hard to tell from where she was sitting. I said, “It’s a tree.” “Oh, come on.” she said. “What are they?”

“Theresa, it’s a tree, like that there and that one over there.” pointing to more newly sprouted trees (conveniently located under the trees they fell from). Like all these trees in our backyard!”

I clearly remember as a child while growing up in Tewksbury, Massachusetts that in the Fall there would be acorns all over the place. Tewksbury was a small rural town not far from the New Hampshire border, just outside the city of Lowell. There was an abundance of trees in our neighborhood and the street was lined with them. (Made for a beautiful canopy over the street when covered with snow…but that’s another blog.) The acorns fell off the trees along with the leaves. There were so many acorns the kids in the neighborhood would gather them up into fairly large buckets! We’d have fights with them, throwing them at each other, trying to put a sting on the other kid without hitting the face. Heck, we’d even remove the ‘cap’ and core out the center, punch a hole in the side, insert a toothpick and pretend we were smoking a pipe! Clearly good old boyhood fun in the early 60’s. We also knew one important point. If these acorns were left to their own natural cycle of life, they grow into trees! That’s why my wife’s next question was a real shock.

“Where do trees come from?” she asked. There is no effective adjective I could use to explain the reaction I had. The look on my face must have said two things to the casual observer, a) “I can’t believe she just said that!” and b) “Of course my wife of 28 years just asked that!”

As I looked over at our son I could tell he couldn’t believe his ears either. After all, he was picking up his chin off the ground!

“What did you just say? Did you say what I thought you said?” I asked.

“No, really. Where do trees come from?” she repeated.

My wife is from Weirton, West Virginia and went to Catholic school. Weirton is an old steel mill town. Her frequently cited memory is that of graphite falling from the sky and collecting on everything. Made for some interesting playground activities. But, she went to Catholic school. That was suppose to be a better education. I on the other hand went to public school. Primarily because I was 4 of 8 and the money wouldn’t stretch that far as my older brother and sister went to Catholic schools too! So I thinking to myself, “Where were you when they taught this subject?”

Realizing I could NEVER convince her any other way, I gently pulled out a newly sprouting tree, acorn neatly attached (as you can see here) and showed it to her.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed.

But, alas, I wasn’t. Well we all had a good laugh at that one. My wife didn’t seem the least embarrassed. She's been here before.

Well the next day I was putting together my mother-in-laws lunch and since it was another beautiful spring day, I took her out onto the back porch deck where we shared our lunch together. And I had to ask. I had to because I was still grappling with the hole concept of my wife not knowing about how trees grew! “Annie” I asked, “you know where trees come from don’t you. How they grow and everything, right?”

“No.” she replied. “Where do they come from?”

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!