Go to the Four Trees!

"Go to the four trees!"

It's a phrase we'd often shout running out the doors to recess at Oxford School. We had three recess periods each day; 15 minutes in the morning, 15 more in the afternoon, and one lovely 30-40 minute period after lunch. Oxford had a massive playground of blacktops, monkey bars, swings with hard seats you could launch from, fields and wooded areas.

The four trees were located at the farthest reach of the playground. Four massive elms growing from the same set of roots. You could hide inside them; hell, three or four of us could hide inside them! The four trees represented freedom, our freedom to run away from school and all its confinement and regimentation, if only for a short time.

I dedicate this new blog to those trees and to their spirit. And thanks to Jin'ai Sun for tipping me off to "Blogger."


(I attended Oxford Avenue Elementary School, in Dearborn Michigan, from 1959 to 1966. The school was torn down in the early 1980s to make room for condominiums.)