My Tree Surgeon

arpeejay · #1 March 9th, 2006, 06:20 AM

[A "really hot guy" strength story, rather than a muscle growth story, but it's real life so I'm using this category. -- rpj]

Believe it or not, we really DO have our own tree surgeon. The house we bought last summer here in suburban Buffalo has a one acre lot and a large number of mature trees, including some really large, really tall mature trees.

Unfortunately, some of them aren't in the best of shape, others are (or were) too close to the house. So when we learned that our neighbors across the court had a brother-in-law who was a tree surgeon, we gave him a holler.

I nearly dropped my teeth when I first saw him last fall. Talk about a hunk! Or, as I like to call him, the Polish Viking God:

Mid 20s, 6 ft or maybe a bit more than that, no more than 200 lbs., ZERO bodyfat, blond hair, blue eyes, smooth as a whistle, cheek bones and jawline so defined you could cut glass on 'em.

Straight, of course, married with a new baby.

But, damn, what a good lookin' man!

He and his crew were out again this week. When they were here in the fall, they chopped down a couple of smaller trees and trimmed back some of those that were closer to the house. In the meantime, we had a smaller tree break in half and just barely missed coming down on the neighbors' fence. Naoyuki and our Tree Surgeon agreed it was time to take down not just that one but five big trees.

So they did. The dog sat on my feet the whole time as chain saws buzzzed and trunks went WHUMP! as they hit the ground and the stump grinder roared.

Yesterday afternoon they sliced up the biggest tree (the trunk of the lower half was easily 2-3 thick) into 3-4 foot logs and loaded 'em into a flatbed trailer hauled by one of their big Fords. Tree Surgeon was apparently doing the chainsawing (around the corner of the house on out of view), then his two assistants would put their backs into it and roll each log up a short ramp and onto the flatbed. I figure the logs must have weighed anywhere from 200 to 400 lbs. a piece, probably more in the 300-400 lb. range. From right here (my office on the 2nd floor of the house) I had a great view of them loading the logs.

Eventually, though, they started running out of room. The logs were all lengthwise, instead of standing up, so they either needed to stand some of the logs up to make room, or add a second layer of lengthwise logs.

Tree Surgeon came over to take care of the situation. He had a long pole, sort of like an ax handle, with a big, movable hook like thing on the end of it, rather like the ice hook you would use in an old ice house. Lickety-split, Tree Surgeon flicked the hook as if it were a whip, grappling one end of a log, and, BOOM, lifting it up and setting it on end.

"Whoa!" I thought. "That's impressive!"

He shrugged his broad shoulders, and shook his head side to side, as if he were a wrestler, about to hit the mat.

Then he did it again.

And again.

And again.

In between he would scoot the upended logs around the flatbed, or tilt 'em up on the horizontal logs to make a second row.

I was mesmerized but I didn't get a stiffy because I knew *eventually* he was going to come knocking on the door to say they were done.

Turns out they had some other chores after that was done (sweeping off the roof, for example) so I went out to get the mail. His two assistants (one a beefy guy in his early 40s, sucking down a cigarette, the other a cute young twenty-something guy who couldn't have weighed as much as any of the logs) were taking a quick break.

"That's a LOT of logs!" I said. "And they're BIG."

"Oh, they're LITTLE logs as far as [Tree Surgeon] is concerned," the beefy guy said. "For US they're big logs!"

Not long after that Tree Surgeon came to ring the doorbell and drop off the bill. Quite apparent he'd never so much as broken a sweat.

"See ya next time!"

CODA

I did see him again, last night, in my dreams. The doorbell rang, just as it did yesterday afternoon, and there he was again. Only this time, no shirt, tanned, and a little dusting of fur between his granite pecs. And, no, I've never seen him without his shirt on so why my mind's eye decided on that combo is anybody's guess.

All the best...

Richard