a little history

Anyone know what kind of tree that grow these kind of pods?

Well.. I trimmed off most of those pods and branches off the trees out front of my folks' house. I cannot tell you how much I hate and despise those trees. Why? When I was a kid in a mainstreamed elementary school, other kids would collect those pods. The best time to harvest the pods is when they turn black with age and the seeds in bold yellow color. What the kids would do is to take a small stick, scrape out all the seeds and the fuzzy coatings from inside the pods. After enough seeds and fuzz, the kids would collect them into their hands and look for a couple of poor, unpopular kids on the playground. The kids with the pod seeds would dump all the contents into the poor kid's shirt. The result is somewhat devastating, painful and annoying. The seeds' fuzz and dust causes a very high reaction on most people's skin - it ITCHES like a mofo!

Anyway, back to those trees.. My folks complained the trees are messy and inconvenient. I said to my mom, "See, I told you! But you and dad never listen. Those trees are awful!" She asked me what did I meant by 'see, I told you!' I reminded her that when she and dad first bought the trees when I was little, I remember vividly that I told them those trees are no good! Gosh, how I hated those trees! Mom said she don't remember me telling her that. How typical, they never listen anyways! Ugh.

So, now you've got a taste of a little history in my life. ;)