The Catalpa Speciosa, otherwise known as a Cigar tree, that stood in our front yard was not a very pretty tree. It was tall and wide with crooked branches that grew more up than out. The leaves were three times the size of oak or maple leaves and shaped like rounded arrowheads. We couldn’t climb it because the lowest branches were far above our heads so most of the time its only purpose seemed to be to hold up floodlights for the fisherman. But twice a year all that changed and it became the best tree in the yard.
Because it stood so tall sometimes we didn’t even notice the white flowers until they began to fall to the grass from large clusters partially hidden by the leaves. If they fell without the help of wind or rain they would cover the whole front yard like a fluffy carpet. Each one was shaped like a small cup just big enough to fit over the tip of your finger with a beautiful ruffle around the top. We never grew tired of putting one on each finger like fanciful gloves or stringing them together like Hawaiian leis. They turned brown quickly once they fell and we could only enjoy them for a few days so they always seemed special.
Toward the end of summer if you looked up into the branches you could see long green seed pods hanging where the flower clusters had been. Some were more than a foot long and as fat as our thumbs. When they began to turn brown they started to fall and then the real fun began. They became swords, firewood on a deserted island, cigars at the general store, arrows for the Indians and whatever else we could imagine. We spent hours playing in the shade of that big tree until the colorful oak and maple leaves stole our attention and we found new adventure jumping into the large piles of raked leaves. We moved from one season of play to another, from snowman to mud pies until one day in late spring a ruffled white flower dropped at our feet and we were drawn back to the imagination tree.
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