Two ancient apple trees, run amok, canopy the addition on my house. On windy November nights they rake like skeletons across our second story bedroom roof.

When I was a boy they were proper little apple trees, stout stems with afros; and they enjoyed the luxury of an open field. On summer evenings, after the field was mowed, my brother and I would hit baseballs; many a ball was snatched from the low branches of that first apple tree. If you could hit a ball into the second apple tree it was an accomplishment indeed, you might be allowed to lean on the bat to admire it for a moment. And if you could throw a ball back from the second apple tree . . . well you couldn't throw a ball back from the second apple tree . . . but if you could have you'd have been superhuman. So we tried.