If a man writes a better book, if he can preach a better sermon, if he can make a better candlestick than anyone else, though he make his home in the woods, the world will beat a trodden path to his door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
This was a fascinating movie about an Irish boy (Billy Eliot), raised and trained by his coal miner father to become a future professional pugilist champion. However, in an unpredictable twist of events, the former has turned out to become a great professional dance artist. This is a must see movie for many parents whose personal agenda for their children have got in the way against the natural talents of their children. Here's a short clip of this superbly done movie entitled Billy Eliot:
Tree climbing was one of those risky childhood adventure which we enjoyed so much back then. During our idle time, those youthful energy had drove us out to do those daredevil monkey climbing on all tall trees in the neighborhood, some Centennial fruit trees in our backyard, unafraid of heights, with our unreliable lanky physique, seemingly feeble arms and sleek but firm legs, we were able to scale the tallest Bagras tree in our neighbor just to get our prized arachnids used for those animated action packed insect combats in school.
In fact, all kids in our place knew how to conquer heights. Our climbing adventures include the tallest coconut trees and those old fruit trees in our place. Ranks were determined according to our climbing skills and the more the difficult the climbs were the greater respect one can get from other members of such elite band of climbers. Ours were a brotherhood of ferocious tree climbers. Our parents never knew all those conquests, all those feats were done in secret.
For anyone who wished to join our group then, he must go through a rigorous test to impress us all with his climbing skills-gliding, swaying or jumping from one branch to another, under the probing eyes of founding brothers- only then can he be admitted as a regular member of the group.
We were trained firsthand experience. It was an adventure which many of us kids back then had indulged without restraint. Without those safety harness and other precautionary gadgets, our modern day sports of wall climbing has truly no match compared with our raw, unharnessed, favorite past time , Adrenaline –pumping adventure: tree climbing.
The old broad leaves Macopa tree, we were lured by its enticing cluster of glossy violet juicy fruits, gathered mostly during fruit bearing seasons of August and the late September of any year. Our itchy feet coupled with that youthful rush of Adrenaline had made all those conquests possible.
We were band of climbers then, having our lofty goal of conquering heights and have gained mastery over all tall trees no matter how difficult were they. There was a code of silence that pervaded over us, shielding us from any adult intervention that would endanger the unity of the brotherhood.