Musing on Monkey Ears. The Playground Weapon of Choice.
The weapons.
Anyone who was ever a child in Central Florida recognizes these.
Those merciless weapons known as Monkey Ears or Elephant Ears. If you were lucky, a tree that dropped these seed pods was planted in the middle of your school playground.
With all the anesthetizing and sanitizing of things, zealous school safety marshals probably have removed most of those trees from school yards. But way back when, their seed pods were the item of choice to hunk at each other.
One brandished them in an upturned palm and flicked it with a whip of the wrist — like a Frisbee. If it made contact with skin at a high rate of speed your opponent got a welt that looked like a hickey in the shape of the state of New Hampshire.
Kids are drawn to them like my toenails to gemstone nail polish.
My children are no exception. We always take plenty pods back to Georgia in hopes of starting our own Monkey Ear tree farm.
Recently we were out walking the streets of my childhood neighborhood. The children were picking up Monkey Ears and shoving them into pockets.
A fellow out walking his dog stopped.
“I remember those things. Deadly…what we used to do to each other with them.” He got a wistful look in his eyes…
See. Everyone who was ever a child in Central Florida has respect for the power of the Monkey Ear.
If there’s a strange looking sprout in the Primary School Playground, just let this be our little secret.
What did you chuck at your friends on the schoolyard?
