Buckeyes

Today's cool autumnal weather reminds me of autumn in Delphi, Ind. when I was a kid - specifically about time spent after school on the way home.

There was a large buckeye tree next to the Monroe Street entrance to the Delphi City Park on the city's eastside that bore its seeds/nuts around this time of the year. My friends and I would stop on our way home from school to fling sticks up into the branches and knock down as many buckeyes as we could before it was obviously time to head for home.

I used to collect a cigar box full of buckeyes every fall and just as regularly, my mother would throw them away.

I haven't seen a buckeye or a buckeye tree in years and, according to the map of the tree's range, I'm not likely to see any here in northeast Arkansas.