My First Christmas Tree

        For as long as I can remember, this large cedar tree has stood in front of our house on Patsy Street. From time to time, my mother would tell me that this was my first Christmas Tree. She told me that her cousin Allen St. Andrew had planted the tree in front of our house after that Christmas, where it stood for over sixty-one years. The tree, which was cut down a few months after I took this picture, had been there for as long as I could remember. I used to play under it, sit in its shade, and climb it from time to time, but not too often, because the cedar foliage was prickly and some parts of the bark was sticky with resin. I remember it standing through hurricanes (Audrey) and a couple of rare snowfalls with only some broken branches. Back when my mother used to heat her iron on the stove, she would pick some of the cedar foliage and pass her iron over it. She told me that it would help the iron glide across more smoothly. In winter the black birds and cedar waxwings would flock there, and year round we would sit in its shade on the steps and the porch, talking, laughing, and having a good time.