Issac Newton was too narrow in his experience.\u00a0 He observed a falling apple and became the father of theoretical physics.\u00a0 Any kid that fell out of a tree learned about a hell of a lot more than gravity.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I only fell out of a tree once.\u00a0 It was enough.\u00a0 When I was about 9 we had a good size elm in the back yard, near the alley.\u00a0 One evening I decided to do a recon for a tree house.\u00a0 We had just seen Swiss Family Robinson.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The tree was about 30 inches in diameter at the stump.\u00a0 The stem was straight and the first branches were about seven feet up.\u00a0 It was a challenge.\u00a0 If we actually built the tree house we would also have to build a ladder on the trunk to go with it.\u00a0 As for the recon, I decided I could shinny up… just this once.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was a tough climb up to the first branches, hugging the tree, inch by inch; fingers and toes in the rough bark.\u00a0 Once I got up into the branches it was a piece of cake.\u00a0 There were a couple of nasty, slimy areas of bark where sap was bleeding.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was a tall tree with not a lot of potential for a tree house.\u00a0 The limbs seemed strong enough but too far apart for my level of construction skill.\u00a0 I went as far up into the top of the tree as I dared.\u00a0 The limbs got pretty thin but the view was great.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t expect the tree to sway so much in the evening breeze.\u00a0 It was kinda scary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was getting dark and time for me to start making my way down.\u00a0 The sparse limbs were more difficult to navigate while descending.\u00a0 There were places where I had only two points of secure contact when I preferred three; but I managed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Everything changed when I got to the bottom branches.\u00a0 It was a lot farther to the ground looking down from above the branches than it had been from standing on the ground looking up.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have a lot of time to plan a strategy, it was getting dark.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shinnying down looked hazardous.\u00a0 Finally, I decided to hang from the lowest branch and drop to the ground.\u00a0 It was more of a drop than I liked, but within the pain threshold.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As I lowered myself below the branch, my grip began to fail.\u00a0 I made a snap decision.\u00a0 Rather than fall to the ground and try to land on my feet, I swung to the trunk and wrapped my arms and legs around the rough bark.\u00a0 I slid down the trunk, leaving a lot of hide on the tree.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was raw from my palms to the center of my chest and neck.\u00a0 The inside of my legs weren\u2019t much better from the ankles to the mid-thighs.\u00a0 When I hit the ground I went down on my butt so hard it knocked the wind out of me.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In all, I fared pretty well.\u00a0 No bones were broken, but my raw spots felt like they were on fire.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mom was nervous about trees so I needed an alibi.\u00a0 I told her that I had been playing tag in the street and tripped while running on the pavement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Imagine how much more advanced our knowledge of physics would now be, if Isaac had FALLEN out of the apple tree…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Issac Newton was too narrow in his experience.\u00a0 He observed a falling apple and became the father of theoretical physics.\u00a0 Any kid that fell out of a tree learned about a hell of a lot more than gravity. I only fell out of a tree once.\u00a0 It was enough.\u00a0 When I was about 9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}