CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1378006
CityViewNC.com | 11 RUN VIBE 611 West Russell Street • 484-7161 www.homemakersfurniturenc.com All Leather Wing Recliners Starting at $ 1450 Available in Navy, Brown and Burgundy Since 1945 HOMEMAKERS FURNITURE & INTERIORS MADE IN USA the property. It had snapped off about seven feet from ground level. It lay dying in the open space for which it had been reaching. Its ending came quickly. I have been growing fruit for myself (and hopefully for you) in this periodical for almost seven years. I started right aer its publisher wrote an article about my Dad's funeral. I asked Ashlee Cleveland if I could try my hand at an article. She was pleased to let me try. It was called "Not As Big As It Used To Be." It was a story about taking my son to Vanstory School, where I had attended as a boy. e school seemed miniscule to what it was in my memory. at little boy graduated high school in late May this year. I found that I had repeated the same story of his entering the school in my "e Last Boy" article. In my mind this week, I was pretty certain that I heard a valuable tree crack and tumble to the ground. I think the fruit of my pen was oen eaten at its sweetest, though it did turn a few mouths inside out. I find today that I have said what I came to say on the CityView tree of fruit. Susie and I bought a tract of land recently. It has farm fields and creek banks and wild turkey and even a waterfall. My good pal David Stewart and I were doing a walk about recently, when we found a pile of persimmon pits on the field edge. We both knew what it meant. A fox or a possum or such had eaten the fallen fruit and the travel route of the pits through the alimentary canal culminated on that field edge. David said, "ey are still fertile aer they pass through, you know." David is a Doctor of General Practitioning. Who was I to dispute the veracity of his biological opinion? I pocketed nine of them. Four sprouted in plastic pots. Today, I am pondering their future placement on the farm. All trees die at some point. Along the way, they hopefully drop a few seeds that sprout perpetuation. Something worthwhile le behind. Something for which to gaze forward. Germination and passage through the understory is a process. We'll see. For today, though, I thank you deeply for having walked with me these seven years along the trails of my memory. Bill McFadyen can be reached at propertybill@nc.rr.com.

