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pachyderm said:
But he took us out in the country in the fall and we gathered black walnuts. Today, living in the city, I gather black walnuts where I can find the trees. Most people seeing me do it have no idea why I am picking them up, or even what they are. Many see them as nuisances.

I remember with much fondness my grandfather and the black walnuts and the whittling and the other simple things he did to make our childhoods better.

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That's beautiful Pachy. I wish I'd known you a couple years ago when I lived in Savage, Maryland, and had my very own 50+ foot black walnut tree (planted as a natural lightning rod 100+ years ago) over my driveway and had to worry lest we get bonked on the head with one of the dense, heavy nuts when they start falling in August :-) My property had belonged to my 90-something next door neighbor's mother and we had a lovely line of hemlock trees on either side of the walnut, which my neighbor remembered his father planting (the line of hemlocks) when my neighbor was 10. I loved the walnut tree and the little, miniature "pinecones" on the hemlocks. We had a pair of old holly too; the yard's wealth was wonderful around Christmas.