Growing Old Together

Day 72: Each year when I set up the Bubble Tree, I am transported across the sea of memory to a place of wonder and awe. More than any other thing, the Bubble Tree meant the coming of Christmas to the long-ago child. It was anticipated with a different relish than the arrival of Santa. Santa only brought presents. The Bubble Tree brought magic and light.

It took some persuading, but one year after a light had burned out and been replaced with a fresh one, I was allowed (with supervision, of course) to perform a dissection to see if I could figure out what made the bubbles bubble. I do not recall receiving any coaching or hints, although I do remember that I had to discard a preliminary hypothesis that the bubbling was caused by a chemical reaction in the glass tube. The reality was much simpler: a small, loosely-fitting plug of glass in the base of the tube allows boiling to occur beneath it, the bubbles then being released along the sides as the plug wobbles. Satisfied that I had discovered the physics involved, the Bubble Tree nevertheless lost none of its magic for me in subsequent years.

Over time, the white paper "needles" of the Bubble Tree yellowed. My mom and I tried to redeem it with spray flocking, and what a failure that was! Still, I would not allow her to throw it away. However, I left home when I was quite young (12), and the next time I saw the Bubble Tree, I was nearly 30 and it had been stored in a steamer trunk in an unheated shed for all that time. The paper needles were badly mildewed, the metal armature was rusty and the wiring was plainly not to be trusted, but I was not ready to let go of something which had been so precious to me as a child. I held onto it, and one year, bubble lights again became available in strings of seven. I dismantled the Bubble Tree, sanded the armature, painted it with Rust-o-leum and dark green enamel, and rewired it with ten new lights cobbled together from two strings. I had not been able to find white garland, so settled for green which, although it doesn't show the lights as well, at least put life back into the Tree.

If the two of us are not quite the same age, the Bubble Tree may be my senior by a year or two. In any event, we have gone through a lot of transitions in the course of our acquaintance, growing old together and still friends after all this time.