Between the country store and a road passing through that remote corner of the Mississippi Delta stood a sycamore tree with limbs stretching in all directions, shading benches where customers sat while playing dominos and enjoying snacks bought at the store.
On summer nights my pal Lamar and me stationed ourselves on the tree’s large limbs, our pockets filled with hard, green sycamore balls, which we threw at passing cars. Once when my boyhood best friend and mentor Jaybird spotted us perched in the tree, he warned, “Y’all keep up that foolishness, and one of these nights the driver of a car hit by them balls will chop y’all up into trotline tidbits.”
