Most of us, I think, particularly guys, but a lot of girls too, climbed trees when we were children, at least if we lived in a place where there were climbable trees. When is the last time that you have climbed a tree? I set a camera up in a tree a few years ago but I cheated and used a ladder, so I didn't actually climb that tree. The last time I climbed a tree, I was in my late twenties or very early thirties, I think, and I was visiting Michigan with my son. He climbed a tree like it was something I wouldn't be able to do, so I did. In my forties and probably even in my fifties, I would have been physically capable of climbing trees, but I was in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where most of the trees - and most of the plants, for that matter - were weaponized with thorns and prickly things. Plus, the trees were small and I had no reason to climb them. Today, while I suppose there are trees on earth that I might be able to climb, I think it's safe to say that my tree-climbing days are over.
Around 1990 or '91. Kids were young and we were playing hide-and-seek one evening at dusk. I climbed into a tree and they never did find me. They were shocked to see mom climbing down out of that tree.
Remember falling out of a tree and "getting the wind knocked out of you", as they called it? I don't know the "technical" explanation for it but you're there on the ground, you can't draw a breath and YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!!! Then you start breathing again, cry for your mama a little, then dry your tears and get back up in the tree again, determined this time to hold on tighter.
When Ella was a kitten, I had to get her out of a tree but, there too, I used a ladder. The way their claws are positioned, they can go up but going back down is more of a problem. They have to back down and cats have to learn that, I guess.
In the early nineties, my grandson climbed up a tree and yelled down you can't get me now, Pop. It was a large Japanese Pine and rather easy to climb. The coming down was more difficult.
You and I have a small difference of experience Bill. Going up a tree can be a bit difficult but the coming down part is super easy.....just potentially more (thump) painful.
The last time a climbed a tree without using a ladder was about 30 or so years ago. I wanted a Christmas Tree and instead of cutting down a small one, I grabbed a set of gaffs and climbed a hundred or so foot Australian Pine and topped 10 feet of it. The top looked better from the ground but since I climbed all the way up that tree, I wasn’t going to go back down without my prize on the end of a rope. It needed a lot of doctoring but it still made a mighty fine Christmas tree.
About once a week I clime up a tree for either sour sop, bread fruit, or mango because if you wait till they are really ripe they drop to the ground and explode. Sometimes a ladder is helpful but to reach the ends of the branches you have to go there.
Without a ladder? I remember the LAST time well. There was only one tree I ever climbed as a kid. It was some kind of pear in our back yard with lots of close together limbs, easy to climb. After a long hiatus from tree climbing, my two younger cousins came to visit from out of town one time. Those girls were something else (long story). Climbed up that tree to escape from them. Judging from their sizes I must have been around 12 or 13 years old. The limbs had become too close together now but I made it. I had become too big for my tree. That's probably the first day I realized I was growing old.