When the leaves fall in the springtime…
This story came to mind when I saw a plea from a neighbor in one of those new subdivisions down Hwy290 for people to stop letting the falling leaves blow into his yard. He had enough to do to keep up with his own. Most answers to the post were funny and a few were mean, but it reminded me of this column I wrote back in 1986.
First published in The Springer, a weekly newspaper in Dripping Springs, Texas.
We’re in the beginning of fall now with the cooler weather and stories on the news about snow and freezing up north. The leaves are beginning to turn a little down on the creek. (Some folks say that is because it hasn’t rained in quite a while, may be.) Those magazines that are printed up north will soon have pictures of families raking up the fall leaves and burning them. Down here we rake leaves twice a year.
Now, not everyone knows about how the live oak tree drops its leaves in the springtime. In fact, I heard about a young lady who learned the hard way about live oaks and romancing rednecks.
Seems this gal got transferred down here with one of those high-tech companies and decided to take in a little of the local night life. I’m not sure whether she met this pick-up cowboy at the Big Wheel or out on the Bastrop highway somewhere, but she fell hard for his line. He was a beer drinking, honkytonk cowboy complete with a gun rack in his pickup and a smooth line for the ladies.
He sweet talked her into some pretty compromising situations, but since he sounded like this was going to be a permanent relationship, she fell for it hook, line and stinker. She even went so far as to write home to her folks that she thought she might be making Texas her home permanently. They were worried enough to call and ask about this fellow. She assured her Momma that he was a nice fellow even if she had met him in a bar and down in Texas driving a gravel truck was a highly thought of occupation. (Man had he pulled the wool over her eyes!)
What this truck driving Romeo told her was, he would love her ‘till the leaves fell in the springtime. Now Christmas came and went. The cowboy nursed her through the cedar fever and spent several nights at her place. About March when she was about to spend another lonely Saturday night, she noticed the live oak outside her duplex window was turning yellow.
Seems that truck driving fellow picked up a job running cattle out to the West Coast and had his phone disconnected. Now this poor little Yankee gal had never heard of a live oak tree. The honkytonk cowboy was true to his word. He loved her until the leaves fell in the spring. So, there she was crying the blues as she raked her leaves in March.
Wasn’t that a sneaky way to get you to listen to a tale about live oaks? Lots of plants and animals are sneaky about how they treat you if you get close, but that’s another story.
© Copyright 1986,1996, 2025 Sulfur Creek Creations
