From Pine Trees to Coconut Trees and Back Again

by Bruce Grimes

​Two guys and a girl had a farm with sweet corn. They sold the sweet corn for $10 for a dozen ears of corn. They used the money to plant Christmas trees, and then waited until Christmas to cut down the pine trees.

Some people who lived in an old-time group home went to the Moose Lodge for a Christmas party. One of them was me, Bruce! I walked into the party with the help of staff. There was a beautiful big Christmas tree from the farm right there in the center of the Moose Lodge. It was a 12-foot Christmas tree with pinecones all over it. There was beautiful blue garland, and a pretty rainbow angel on top. I was the one who put the angel on top of the tree. I felt happy and sad, because after I put the angel on the tree, I fell down. I ended up in the hospital. I had to have surgery because my hip was broken.

I was in the hospital over Christmas. That was very hard, but a guy dressed up as Santa came to visit me in the hospital. Santa gave me $1,000.

After I got out of the hospital, I used the money to buy a plane ticket to Jamaica, where there are no pine trees, but there are coconut trees. I took some coconuts and sold them for $50 each. A nice Jamaican lady bought them. Then she told me my fortune. She said, “You will run into a nice lady and get married.”

We went on a TV show called “50 First Dates,” and got to know each other very well. She liked me because I had a casino and a fortune. I liked her because she liked to go to parties and drink wine.

Then the fortuneteller and I got married. We moved to Florida, where my mom and dad lived. I introduced them to my wife. They didn’t like her. They said, “Why did you get married to some stranger?” I told them, “I love her! I love the way she dresses up. She’s kind, and she keeps making me vanilla ice cream cake.”

I bought her a Ferrari to drive us around Florida with the top down. We could see coconut trees everywhere. I tried to keep catching coconuts as they fell from trees when we drove past.
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It made me think of the pinecones on the Christmas tree in Minnesota. We drove the Ferrari to Minnesota with a U-Haul trailer on the back. I was happy to show her my home in Minnesota, and the pine trees that grow pinecones instead of coconuts.