Lessons from the Neighborhood
Sometimes, when you least
expect it, you learn something new
By Philip Gulley
From “Front Porch Tales”
I’m glad I was born before computer and video games became popular. My
parents turned off the television and sent me outdoors, where I met all kinds of
interesting neighbors. Knowing them was an education in itself.
Dr. Gibbs didn’t look like any doctor I’d ever known. Every time I saw him, he
was wearing overalls and an old straw hat. His smile matched his hat—crinkly and
well-worn. When Dr. Gibbs wasn’t saving lives, he was planting trees. His house
sat on four acres, and his life’s goal was to make it a forest.
The good doctor came from the “no pain, no gain” school of horticulture. He
never watered a new tree. When I asked why, he said that watering plants made
them grow shallow roots. Trees that weren’t watered, he said, had to grow deep
roots in search of moisture.
Dr. Gibbs would plant an oak, and instead of watering it every morning, he’d beat it
with a rolled-up newspaper. Smack! Slap! Pow! He said it was to get the tree’s
attention.
Dr. Gibbs went to his glory a couple of years later. I’ve walked by his house to
look at the trees I watched him plant 25 years ago. They’re granite strong.
I planted trees a few years back. Carried water to them, sprayed them, the whole
nine yards. Now they expect to be waited on hand and foot. Whenever a cold wind
blows, they tremble and chatter their branches.
Funny thing about those trees of Dr. Gibbs’s. Adversity and deprivation seemed
to benefit them in ways that comfort and ease never could.
Every night before I go to bed, I check on my two sons. I watch their little bodies,
the rising and falling of life within. I often pray their lives will be easy, but lately
I’ve been thinking it’s time to change my prayer. Has to do with the inevitability of
cold winds.
I know my children are going to encounter hardship, because life is tough. I’m
going to pray my sons’ roots grow deep, so when the rains fall and the winds blow,
they won’t be swept away.
(364 words)
--from Reader’s Digest December 1998