Old Funky Arms

When we moved to the new neighborhood, the lot where dad would build the house was vacant. That’s because it was on a steep hill, and because it had a creek running at the bottom of that hill. We got a good deal on the house because dad could be the contractor for the development and building of our new home.

I had just turned 12, and while I wanted to stay with my friends in my old neighborhood, there were some really cool things about this new place. One of the coolest things was right here on our lot.

It was called Old Funky Arms, or maybe it was Old Funky-Arms—I’m not sure since I only ever heard this phrase uttered aloud and never saw it written.

Old Funky Arms was a twisted tree on the side of our property, which all the kids in the neighborhood loved. It was probably the coolest tree in the whole neighborhood, especially since all the other lots had been developed, and OFA was like a beacon for all the kids who wanted to climb and play.

Some time in 1987, my family cut OFA down in order to finish developing the lot.

This seemed deeply symbolic of how awful this move was for me—I had been grounded in my idyllic childhood, or at least I perceived it that way. Moving was ripping off a Band-Aid with a lot of skin attached, and the death of Funky Arms seemed like the exclamation point on a very shitty move.

Here’s how I described the move:

They bought an empty lot in 1986, and I began trying to figure out ways we could stay in Candlewood. I wasn’t interested in upending the first place where I felt I really had roots, so I asked if maybe we could buy this house from the landlord instead. No dice, but maybe you can see where my eleven year old brain was heading once it had a little more time to develop.

This wasn’t just a move to a new neighborhood for me, though. I was going through puberty at the same time, leaving pieces of my childhood behind forever. It was time to throw away or sell all my toys and to pretend to be an adult.

When Old Funky Arms was cut down, this seemed tantamount to the end of my childhood, and the timing couldn’t have been more coincidental. I continued to hear tales of Old Funky Arms years later, about how great that tree had been to climb.