Thought About The Sprayers Today

Today I was walking around and looking at the trees and I was reminded of something.

Not sure if this was a local thing or not- but once in a while when I was a kid I'd be out in the street playing with my brother and a weird beat up gardeners truck would pull up. It had a big silver canister in the back. Me and my brother would know what was coming and we'd run inside. We knew the drill. We took cover. Because the sprayers had arrived.

From the living room window would watch these dudes in one piece outfits get out and grab hoses off the back. A machine would turn on that sounded like a giant lawnmower and these maskless men would start spraying huge clouds of chemicals into the trees. It sounded like rushing wind as they'd spray all wild willy nilly. Spraying our trees. The neighbors trees. All the trees would get a little. White clouds would billow up and down the street as they'd blast this stuff into the air. Then they'd shut off the machine, throw the hoses in the back, pile back in the truck and drive away. The lawns would look all misty for a while afterwards.

My mom would always make sure we were inside when the sprayers came. As a kid I felt that something was wrong about the sprayers. I wondered about these men who would spray the weird mystery mist without wearing masks. All I knew about the spray was to be afraid of it. What were they spraying for? So wildly and randomly? And why couldn't they be stopped? I vaguely remember something about gypsy moths or something- but it seemed way weird at the time..

Eventually the sprayers never came back. The spraying siege ended. The neighborhood streets were safe from the sprayers. I've never seen the sprayers since and never really heard about them again.

Was just wondering about those guys today. The sprayers.

ok bye!

tOdd