Telling Tales of the 'Potato Chip Tree"

Each year around this time, my oldest daughter likes to remind me how I've no doubt scarred her for life. You see, when she was 3 or 4, we were driving across Bellona Avenue when a beautiful Gingko tree outside the Charlesmead Pharmacy caught my eye. It was at its golden peak and the fan shaped leaves had started to fall. Lying on the ground beneath the tree, the drying leaves looked like piles of crisp potato chips.

"Look, Emily," I teased, "it's a potato chip tree."  

As we continued down the road, she never questioned if the tree was truly the source of potato chips and I never gave my comment another thought… until maybe 10 years later. That's when she turned into a teenager and in her mind everything I said or did was "stupid."  I was an embarrassment and the source of all her angst.

"Remember when you told me that was a potato chip tree?" she asked one sunny autumn day as we drove past the pharmacy.  She went on, "I believed you. Do you know what you've probably done to me by telling me lies?"

I replied, "Oh, like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy? I'm sorry," I said dripping with sarcasm. "I guess you'll have to bring this up with your therapist when you are older."

The discussion ended there, but came up again the following year. I just smiled and said nothing knowing one day she would appreciate her imaginative mother.

Emily has not been in town the past five seasons when the "potato chip tree" turned golden and covered the ground with crispy leaves that look good enough to eat. But, I have always made it a point to drive along this stretch of Bellona with the other kids. Over the years, they've enjoyed hearing how appalled Emily was that I would tell her such a thing. Then they realize that they too fell victim to similar tales.

As Emily has grown she has learned to laugh at herself for believing (even for a moment) potato chips came from that tree. After all she was only 3 or 4. She's also admitted that if she ever does see a therapist, the potato chip tree and her mother's harmless comments are not likely to be part of the discussion.