This is a story of when my son Daniel and niece Jessica were young, and believe me they loved the outdoors and having fun. These two spent a lot of time together and were raised more like brother and sister than cousins, and they could both be mischievous little varmints at times. They were also climbers and it was not unusual to walk outside and find one or both of them up in the top of some tree.
The day this incident occurred the family was all together at our home in Cottonwood, Alabama. The adults were inside talking and enjoying the air conditioner and we had sent the kids outside to play, we had told them to stay inside the fenced in backyard, how much trouble could they get into just right outside the back door? There was only one tree in our backyard, but I didn't think anything about it because it was a flimsy banana tree. The tree was pretty tall and reached up to just above the edge of our roof, but I could have reached up and easily pulled the whole thing over. After a few minutes, things outside had become quiet, so being suspicious Granny looked out the window to check on the kids and immediately let out a warning yell, THEY"RE CLIMBING THE TREE TO GET ON THE ROOF! And with that, we all made a mad rush for the door, the first one out yelling "GET DOWN FROM THERE!" The kids were holding on to the house trying to struggle up onto the roof, but now startled, they both let go at the same time and then rode the poor banana tree all the way to the ground landing in one big lump at the feet of the outrushing adults.
The look on their faces, two little trouble-makers, embarrassed but unhurt looking up at a group of both scared and angry adults. You can probably see in your mind's eye the two of them, mouths open with the shock from the sudden turn of events and eyes wide already beginning to fill with tears. Next started the blame game and excuses followed by scolding words and a rushing inside of children and women for cleaning, checking for injuries and then some form of time-out.
The men stood gazing at the poor pitiful broken over banana tree. Let's pick it back up and tie it off I said, maybe it will heal itself. We had always hoped to have banana's off of the tree one day, but even though it had grown quite large every year, we had as yet not had the first sign of a banana. We would not see any this year either, the tree did live but it was pitiful looking, broken and wilted. We were all a little disappointed because none of us had ever actually see bananas growing on a tree, and we had heard from some of the older people in town that under the right conditions it was possible.
It was the very next year that the tree really took off and it grew and grew and then grew some more. When the bloom showed up we were all amazed! A banana tree and its fruit is a very weird sight to see when you witness it for the first time. In the end, the once broken down tree completely recovered and delivered a huge bunch of the largest and most beautiful bananas that I have ever seen, and they were absolutely delicious after ripening on the tree.
So I guess the moral of this story is that if you are trying to grow bananas in your backyard what you need to do is invite some children over to climb up and bless the tree for you. It worked for me and I'm sure it could work for you also!
And lastly, here is one of the little culprits munching on the bounty to prove that this one is true
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**Disclaimer: I often use the freewrite prompt to tell a story instead of doing a pure freewrite, so they sometimes take longer than 5 minutes and usually have some editing. But I try to do my story straight through at one sitting without any unnecessary breaks.
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Prompt: banana
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