Commentary: ‘Spring fling’ takes on a new meaning

Tuesday, April 9, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

I'M TWO WEEKS into my spring ritual of sprucing up, and things are going fairly well.

Besides accomplishing a few tasks, I've also learned a valuable lesson: Sometimes it's better not to disturb something that has been left alone for years.

I've also learned that trust, chain saws, human bodies and '61 Thunderbirds don't fly very well.

As for trust: Two weeks ago, a young gentleman stopped by my house and asked me if I'd give him $50 to trim my mulberry tree, which takes up the whole front yard.

I told him the job should pay more. (That's the kind of business savvy I have.) He said he'd like to sell the branches as firewood -- that's why he charges so little.

When he asked for the money up front, I suspected it was a con, but I gave him half anyway, saying, "Look, if you don't show up, no big deal." (Again, that was my business savvy talking.)

He did show up the next day, not to spruce up the tree, but to hit one of my roommates for an additional $9 "for cab fare."

"Don't give that guy any more money," I said.

"Don't worry," my roommate said. "There's only one bleeding-heart liberal in this house."

It was a poor choice of words because, three days later, I was on the limb of the mulberry tree with a roaring chain saw, and then my body and the roaring chain saw plummeted to the ground when the branch I was cutting cracked under my feet.

Luckily, I was not injured.

The next day, in an attempt to spray water sealant on my shake roof, my old wooden ladder (yes, I constructed it) broke under my weight and I fell again.

This time I was a bit shaken, and then shaken a bit more as I slowly pulled myself up and saw, just to my right, a sharp, 6-inch wooden shard of the ladder sticking straight up from the dirt.

You'd think when you're having such a week, you would know not to try to drive a '61 Thunderbird with brake problems.

I planned to drive it to the repair shop, but first I stopped at my job. Or tried to stop.

When I attempted to park, the brake pedal went to the floor, and the T-bird glided over a 3-foot-high wall and then fell like a 2-ton dinosaur onto the pavement below.

Again I was OK, but the T-bird suffered some ugly damage to its undercarriage.

"You're lucky," said Frank, my mechanic, as the tow truck let down the old Ford in front of his shop.

"If it was a new car, you probably would have totaled it."

"Sure, Frank," I replied. "And if I were driving a car built after the Kennedy administration, just maybe the brakes wouldn't have failed in the first place."

When I got back to work, there was only one message on my answering machine. It was from the tree trimmer.

Turns out he witnessed the accident, and he would be more than happy to keep his mouth shut about the damage to the pavement that served as landing area for the T-Bird.

In fact, he was leaving town to take a job at his uncle's landscaping business.

And he needed bus fare.