The Mulberry Tree

I began my life of crime at age seven. I may have been older, but judging from my son’s new found mischievousness, the criminal behavior probably surfaced when I was roughly as old as he is now. Seven, going on eight. While I am still young, I am old enough to remember a Williams Bay that many of you would only recognize in Tom Helfin paintings. I remember a town with simple, if run down, bait shacks on the shore, long before they were removed to make way for an austere brick building that has yet to blend into the landscape. I remember the gas station that once stood over the gravel patch that the Bay now claims to be a sailboat rigging area. I claim it to be an unsightly gravel patch, but back in the 80s it was a gas station. And not just any gas station, it was the gas station where I would commit my first and only act of shoplifting.

What I stole that day I cannot remember. It might have been a pack of gum. Certainly it wasn’t a candy bar, for a candy bar is too big and my confidence in crime was not that bold. I cannot remember who was with me at the time of the pilfering, but I do recall the event being some initiation of sorts, which leads me to believe there must have been friends involved. But the gas station wasn’t always a place that I had targeted for my virgin heist, it originally hosted a sweeter time in my childhood, before the crime spree. Days or years before I channeled my inner Winona and swiped that pack of gum, I would routinely visit that same gas station with my brothers and my grandma. Grandma Gudie as she was known, a playful name derived from her much more serious given name of Gudrun.

My grandmother was always old. She was my grandmother, but not in the way that some 40 year old women can also be grandmothers. She was a grandmother who was very old when I was a kid, and she’s much, much older today. She taught me plenty of things, but some grandmothers actually teach their grandchildren meaningful things. My grandmother never taught me to cook. I cannot claim her as my inspiration for any career path or significant hobby. During one rare sleepover at her Williams Bay summer home- a humble home on Geneva Street that my milk-man grandfather purchased at the prodding my father and kept for only a few years- she taught me that I should take my socks off when I sleep, on account of my feet needing to breathe. She taught me songs about diving between the legs of bowl-legged women. She offered up a preamble to any dive that began with “one for the money” and ended with “four to go!” She was a good grandmother, and still is. But my fondest memory of my still living grandma involves a tree.

A Mulberry tree to be exact. A tree that had been planted along the shore between the Summer Haven association park and what is now Bay Colony South. Looking back, it’s fair to assume that the tree was specifically planted in that location by someone, probably the owner of the estate that was razed in order to build the condominium, given that the tree is not indigenous to this area. But the origins of the tree mattered little to me as a boy. I was only interested in the ripe fruit that hung low during the summer months. My parent’s home is on the lakefront in the Loch Vista Club. My grandma would spend many summer weeks with us at that home, and if the timing was right, and my grandma had a few loose quarters, and the weather was primed, my brothers and I knew that we might be able to convince our aged grandma to take the walk down the shore path towards that Mulberry tree.

The tree twisted up from the ground, not far from the waters edge. It was so close to the shore path that anyone who ambled past on sultry August afternoons would have had to work hard to not notice the dark purple fruit. Even though it was obvious, my grandma presented the tree to us as if it was a secret. Our secret. A tree that we had found and that we had claimed. When passersby indeed passed by, we would stop our greedy harvest and look to the sky, or to the water. We would bend to tie our shoes or we would feign conversation. We would bury our stained hands in our pockets and do our very best to disguise our feast in the hopes that we would be left to ourselves, without competition.

The seven or ten minute walk down the shore path to our prized tree took us past Oakwood Estates first, then Gage Marine, and finally onto the Summer Haven lawn. When we had cleared the marina, we’d run through the lawn and up to the tree. Needlessly rushing to stuff our mouths with fruit that I remember tasting sweet, but not as intense as a raspberry or strawberry. I can’t close my eyes and remember the flavor, but I can look to my hands and see those red stained fingers. My grandma would laugh, or sing, and although I cannot remember such trials, I’m sure my brothers and I fought over the fruit, or over which branch was whose. And then, when we had our fill and our purple lips betrayed our secret, we would continue walking north. We’d walk along the squishy shore from Bay Colony to the Chippewa Resort, and finally onto Edgewater Park. We’d walk through the park and across the road and around the gas pumps, and be greeted by the smelly, cold air of the gas station. My grandma would pass out quarters and dimes, gladly trading a dollar or more as ransom for an hour spent with her three grandsons. The we’d each pick out a candy or two and head home.

Those walking trips down the shore path and past that Mulberry tree were made rewarding, at the time, by the promise of Bit O’Honey and Big League Chew. But today, looking back through the dense haze of 24 or more years, I remember the gas station as the only place I’ve ever stolen from, and the Mulberry tree as the sole highlight of those summer walks. I parked in the Bay Colony parking lot this morning, and scuffled through the soaked lawn and down the squishy shore path. I know where the Mulberry tree should be, but today I could find only a hollowed out stump where the fruit eating binges of my childhood played out. Tonight, as I do every Wednesday night, I’ll go to my grandma’s house and reheat some leftovers for her dinner. I’ll set her water close to her right hand, put her pills in her plastic bowl, get her jello dessert and stir a packet of chocolate into microwaved water. Tonight we’ll talk about that Mulberry tree, but I won’t let her know that someone cut it down.