The smell of freshly mowed hay was heavy in the air like sweet perfume. It came wafting up the mountainside from the valley below. And with it, on the same breeze, came the familiar sounds of the noon bell from the little village church.

White puffy clouds drifted lazily across the sky and my wife Margo kept entertaining me with the animals she claimed to see in the clouds' shapes. There was a cat's face, there an eagle. Or so she claimed.

"Can't you see them," she almost hollered, while she teasingly punched me in the ribs. She finally gave up with a "you just have no imagination".

We were in our early thirties, full of life, and love, and enterprising spirits. The world beckoned to be conquered.

But first I had to conquer the cherry tree. Margo had tried in vain to talk me out of today's venture.

Finally we arrived at my quarry, standing on top of a retaining wall of local rocks, looking at the ripe cherries. All that remained was reaching over to pull a branch closer; and with one of us holding the branch, the other could do the harvesting.

This was a tall, old tree. Getting up the tree from its base was not an option, the trunk was protected by a wide ring of bramble bushes. It was no wonder then that no one ever picked its cherries.

As I stood at the edge of the wall I could feel the fight between common sense and adventure spirit. And as in so many times in my life it was the spirit that won. Margo obviously went through the same mental contortion with the identical result; no wonder, she has adventure spirit mixed right in with her blood.

Finally I very gingerly reached out to the nearest branch. It was just barely out of reach. But I noticed a slight swaying caused by the wind. The branch came a little closer and then retreated a little farther. And so we waited for the right moment.

There, now, keep your balance and grab that branch, - and hold on tight. Well, I did hold on tight because I was swinging in a graceful arc across the bramble bushes eight feet below. The view into the valley from here must have been breathtaking, but I was not tuned in to breathtaking views at that moment.

For a short moment I was considering doing what I had done when I was smaller, using my body movement to swing it out further and further this maneuver would have worked just fine had the branch been more substantial. But that was not the case and so I swung helplessly back and forth like a bob it the end of a pendulum of a cuckoo clock.

I was trying to spot the most hospitable place to make my demanding but I could not make up my mind, the brambles all looked alike, densely woven together. And so I saw myself walking home dripping blood like a leaking faucet and leaving a red trail from here to the end of the pristine spring green meadow.

Once home I would have to face another problem, how to remove my clothes which would probably full of thorns. Next I would have to face the tweezers that but pulled from my skin dose torrents that are more deeply embedded. And then would come the torture, Mercurochrome or Iodine,

But Margo saved the day. She found a sturdy stick not far from the crime scene and suddenly I felt myself poked in my rear, making me swing out a little bit further. When I returned I received a second push and I made my trip across the brambles again. One more push and I came close enough on my return for her to grab my belt. She had a tight grip on my belt and I decided to keep a tight grip on the branch.

And yes we gorged ourselves on sweet, sweet cherries.

"You see", I told Margo later, "just like life. To succeed you need a plan, carry it out even against adversity. And if you have a partner to stand by you, then life will hand you sweet cherries."