A Girl and Her Ax

Not that anyone noticed, but I've taken a break from my blog for about a week. I was running out of stories and patently refuse to write anything lackluster. The other day, my father reminded me of a period in my childhood that I apparently blocked from my memory that is blog-worthy. I was 8 years old (or younger) and was the only little, Jewish girl in upper- class Westchester that had her very own ax.

You see, my father was (and is) a fitness freak and all around outdoorsman. He insisted on having wood-burning stoves in our Westchester home and our vacation home in the Adirondacks. Appalled by the mere suggestion of purchasing firewood, he would seek out and chop his own. Insisting that I be a part of his lumberjacking, he got me my own ax so I could help. I don't recall doing much of the actual chopping, though. Instead, I was relegated to mindless and incessant stacking of seemingly endless piles of wood. I would cringe anytime we would pass a fallen tree because I knew my dad would pull over, take his trusty ax and chain saw out of the car (really he would) and drag me with him to help do his best Paul Bunyon imitation. I never knew of any other suburban girls who were subject to this torture, let alone owned their own axes. Just me.

In retrospect, none of this seems very odd anymore. After all, my dad also owned and regularly used a machete and we didn't live in the jungle. Why shouldn't his daughter have her own ax?

Disclaimer: If this post is (God forbid) lackluster, don't blame the author. My shrink insists I work through my childhood traumas by expressing them anyway I can. Why not blog? :-)