The neighbor behind me stopped his truck in front of my house tonight and got out.

“I need to tell you something,” he said.

So he walked up and pointed to a 4-inch scratch on his neck. “See this? Your tree did this.”

I grimaced in sympathy.

“So you need to trim your tree,” he continued, indignant now. “You see what it did.”

And he pointed again at the faint wound, as if I had ignored him the first time

At that point I was stunned in wonderment. How did this happen? Was he intimate with my tre...