We’d stayed late at the park, and the sun was going down. I started packing up my gear.

Suddenly I noticed a very old man sitting at one of the picnic tables.

“How’re you doing?” I asked.

“Aye, ye scurvy dog!” he replied, loudly thumping his left fist on the table. “How many leagues to th’ Rusty Gudgeon?”

I know that Talk Like a Pirate Day is Sep. 19, so he wouldn’t be one of those pirate wannabes.

Maybe he was the real thing.

Fist of Wood. Looking more closely, I noticed that his fist was not flesh: it was a wooden knob at the end of his arm. A small ivory inset showed a smiling skull.

He caught me looking.

“I see you’ve noticed me wooden hand,” he said. “It’s carved from t’ heart o’ a great killer eucalyptus.

“Jus’ like me eye,” he added, pinning me with a stare. His left eye was blue green, like the open ocean on a sunlight day. His right eye was dark brown, with just a hint of wood grain.

Tasmanian Bluegum. I glanced behind me at the giant tree of the Great Meadow. I believe it’s Eucalyptus globulus, a Tasmanian bluegum, which grows to 100 feet or taller. The tree, introduced to California in the mid 1800s, flourishes in many California parks.

“That’s t’ tree! Its heartwood be dark and dense, heavy as t’ iron o’ an anchor.”

“It’s a killer, too,” I said. “It eats our planes.”

“These trees be t’ sharks o’ t’ tree kin’dom, an Australian nightmare come true,” he said. “They move! Some say they come from a night o’ frolic between a Venus Fly Trap and t’ Mother o’ all Eucalyptus. Might’ve been a big lizard involved, too!

Weird Beasts. “It’s t’ sort o’ thin’ you expect from Australia. Platypus, Spiny Anteater, Tasmanian Devil, Killer Yuke.”

I showed him the Fetchomatic 3000. He peered at it closely, turning it over with his wooden hand and testing the rubber of the slingshot with his left hand.

He put it down. “I prefer a good rope, a belayin’ pin an’ a dagger, meself,” he said. “I’d haul meself well up t’ tree by stickin’ it with t’ dagger, makin’ smartly t’ rope at each branch and brin’in’ it down well abaft.”

Nodding as if I’d understood, I told him there was still a plane trapped at the very top of the Killer Yuke. Dave North says the tree is growing around the plane, absorbing it.

A Peg Leg, Too. He was staring at the Big Yuke, now. Suddenly, he rose from the picnic bench and began limping toward the tree. He pivoted on his stiff right leg and I saw a peg extending below the cuff of his trousers.

Whap! He stabbed the tree with the dagger and dragged himself up the trunk. In the fading light, I couldn’t see what he did with the rope but a moment later I heard another Whap! and saw him inching higher.

The tree began shaking, though there was no wind.

Within minutes I could see him now about halfway up the tree. I thought I heard him cackle in a pirate sort of way.

I packed up my car and took one last look. I thought I saw him very near the top. The tree was shaking like a wet dog.

Gashes in the Trunk. The next day, I looked up into the Killer Yuke. I could see a deep gash at the base of the tree and another about 5 feet farther up. Leaves and branches blotted out the evidence up high.

“Maybe he got it,” I thought.

Then I noticed a strange growth at the base of the tree, one I’d never seen before. It was a dark wooden knob. A small ivory inset showed a smiling skull.

(I admit it: I got lotsa help from the English-to-Pirate Translator.)

Tags: Baylands, Crashes, Trees.

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