Early on, during my son’s formative years, it was abundantly clear that he would either grow up to a leader of men and do wonderful things, or he would end up in jail and be the leader of the chain gang. This isn’t a mother’s musing about what her son might grow up to be -- this was based on hardcore factual incidents that kept reoccurring. A lot of it had to do with his innate entrepreneurial tendencies.

It was our precocious third grade boy, who was suspended from school for a week, for unauthorized use of school stationary. According to the principal, he had quite a booming business going, running a quasi-like dating service on the playground. For a dime, he would match-make a compatible girl to a boy, or at least be the go-between for someone who was shy.

For a quarter, he would officially declare them a "couple." For fifty cents, they could be married. For a dollar? They could get divorced. All of this was of course, officially recorded in his best penmanship on school stationary, that he'd swiped from the office secretary in one of his many routine visits to the Principal's office.

In the fourth grade, it was our talented boy, watched a little too much 1980s television. Let's just leave it at his father not being very happy when he had to go to explain to the principal, that our darling wasn't aware that mixing sugar and flour, then selling it to much older kids intent on getting high, wasn't exactly drug dealing.

This was the same year that we took him on vacation to the Chicago Stock Exchange. He wasn't daunted by the guard telling him he couldn't go onto the exchange floor without a jacket or a tie. He found a young exchange worker amused enough to "sell him a tie." He "borrowed" someone's suit jacket, that they were just not using at the moment.

The entire family, in the meantime were frantically searching for a lost boy who left the observation area. He was finally spotted by his sisters down on the busy exchange floor during trading. My husband at the time, was amused enough to buy him all the books afterwards, that his little greedy heart wanted. After all, no matter how wrong he was for deliberately going for a closer look at the entire operation -- you had to admire his determination, and his need to know more.

Jeff had so many childhood escapades that they would be too numerous to go into. As his mother, I must confess there were times when I thought I was Aunt Polly living in a modern day The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Jeff was always imaginative and mischievous. Very often his antics ended up in problem solving exercises, involving a great deal of patience, especially on the part of adults. One such adventure, was his business dealings with Bob-the-Boatman.

We were living in Central Florida that summer, in an unincorporated part of Orlando where the streets are still not completely paved, the houses were mostly built on lots sold in the 1940s, in a time when building codes were non-existent. This was a mixed neighborhood of elderly retirees, middle class working poor, and more than a few Florida rednecks. The co-mingling of such diversity always came with a lot of drama.

About a half a block down the street, lived an elderly woman in her eighties. Her property was larger than most of the neighbors, on it, was the home business of her adult son, Bob-The-Boatman. In his forties, Bob still lived with his mama and had never married.

Bob's business encompassed boat motor repair and boat engine repair, along with a few boat restorations. All of that business was conducted outside, in her front yard under tin roofed homemade structures.

Well into her eighties, the mother offered my ten year old son a job, when he approached her about lawn mowing. She would give him ten dollars to remove a very large tree stump that was out by the side of her driveway. The tree stump measured almost three feet across in diameter. She felt it was most unattractive next to her beautiful flower garden.

In Jeff's mind, this would be easy money. The next morning, after digging around that stump for about an hour, he disappeared. Soon, he arrived with a gang of local boys in tow, on their bicycles, all armed with shovels. He'd promised the one who shoveled the most full shovels-full of dirt from around that tree -- would get half the payment for the job. The others were to get chips and soda. A frenzy of shoveling activity began, dirt and sand flying everywhere and in every direction, as the boys circled the stump.

It didn't take very long for the entire neighborhood to hear Bob-the-Boatman cussing and fussing, at the sight of a half dozen ten year old boys, their bikes, and their shovels on his mother's property. This of course, sent some of the less brave boys scurrying home. Only two boys remained with Jeff, each intending to out do the other, all focused on being the one who dug out that tree stump.

Bob looked every bit the part of a stereo-typical redneck Florida cracker, from his tatooed tanned muscles, to his torn and holey cut off jeans, all topped off with a face that clearly had seen a number of fights, too much sun, and too many bottles of beer. He was no man to mess with.

My son and his friends worked on that tree stump until way after dark that first night. Jeff came home too tired do more than eat and fall asleep. To their credit, the boys were back there the next day, and the next day, and well into the fourth day. Each afternoon, I would watch Bob's elderly mother bring those boys sandwiches, cookies, and lemonades.

On that last day, the stump with massive roots, was in the middle of a vast deep hole, still standing firmly to it's God given right to stay in the ground. The hole was as big as any standard trampoline top found today and almost three feet deep.

Bob's mother finally convinced them that they were beating a dead horse. She'd have to have someone come in with some heavy equipment to get rid of that tree stump. She paid them anyway, because she knew how hard they had worked.

About an hour later, my son came tearing into the house, locking the door behind him and dove for under a bed, shouting to me, "Whatever you do, don't let Bob-the-Boatman in! Hurry! Run and lock the back door, mom before he gets in and kills me!"

It was no joke. The house shook each time, Bob repeatedly pounded on that front door. I too, was scared as I dialed the police, and then my husband to ask him to hurry home.

Outside the door, Bob stood shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the neighborhood also stood outside their doors watching to see what would happen next. The only repeatable words were:

"You better come out here you little bastard, Nobody takes money off my eighty-three year old mother, for a job they didn't finish."

Unable to get in the house, Bob took his anger out on my car with a two-by-four, before the police arrived and hauled him off.

Soon, my husband arrived. He and Jeff surveyed the damage to the car, walked down to talk to Bob's mother, and take a look at the tree stump and it's hole. Then, he went to bail Bob out of jail. Bob promised to repair the car to it's original condition. My husband promised to see to it that Jeff finished the job he'd started.

The next day he took off work early and went with Jeff armed with chain saws and shovels. They worked until after dark, sawing massive roots and chunks off that tree stump. It would not budge.

The following day, they were back at it with a new strategy. They bored a large number of holes into the stump, and put commercial stump killing chemicals into it. Then, they poured hot water into the holes, repeating the process until the holes were deep enough. Then, they packed those holes with Spanish moss, and lit them on fire. Still, the tree stump would show them, as the fires kept going out. By now, the stump stubbornly had only lost about a half foot of diameter.

We were well into the second week of the tree stump removal project. By then, the stump had a name --- Bob Jr. It had become famous up and down the block. It's notoriety had even spread among the seniors, as far as a few blocks away.

The whole mess was beginning to take a toll on my husband and son's egos. My husband swore that some of the spectators were rooting for the stump. My son begged to be relieved of duty. By then, we were experiencing the usual Florida afternoon summer storms. It was no picnic, as they continued to hack at, whack at, and continue to attempt to burn that tree stump. They made little progress, in what was by now a big mud hole.

In a final act of desperation, my husband bought a heavy duty chain, and hooked it to the bumper of our old van, claiming he was "going to yank that @#$% out of there!" This from a man who never swore.

Word of this, spread like a wild fire. Rednecks and seniors alike, all brought out their lawn chairs. One neighbor had her camera out. The crowd swelled to at least twenty people. Even Bob-the-Boatman stopped what he was doing, and ambled over with his beer in hand.

Tires squealed, the engine groaned, as the first hour long attempts to pull that tree stump failed. You could smell the tire rubber in the air. He repositioned the chains, then lugged down some large boards from our house. After selecting strategic points beneath the stump, he enlisted several able-bodied men to help him wedge those boards under the stump. He then had the men put pressure on them, to somewhat lift the stump from it's soon-to-be former grave.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that my husband was a physicist, who normally worked in a defense industry think tank, behind a desk, in a tie and suit. His approach to solving this problem was scientific. It involved a lot of measuring, and periodic paper calculations, in the small notebook he always wore in his plastic pocket protector. This nerdy fact was not lost on his audience, who were greatly amused by the sight of him doing anything in a white dress shirt, that matched his equally pasty white skin.

Finally, someone showed up with a second chain. Certain, they would be successful now, my husband hooked it up to another of our vehicles. The plan was that both of vehicles would pull on the tree stump at the same time.

Even though Jeff was only ten, he was at the wheel of one of the vans. My husband was driving the other vehicle. The command was given to "Go!"

Tires squealed, the air filled with burnt rubber once again. Both car engines revved up to the max -- and two bumpers came off, almost simultaneously as the vehicles rocketed momentarily forward before coming to a screeching halt. The crowd hooped and hollered in delight, apparently this was as good as any tractor pull event, and it hadn't cost them a dime.

At the end of the show, even Bob-the-Boatman had enough compassion to tell my husband that the reason he'd never tried to remove that tree stump, despite all of his mother's nagging, was that when he'd first cut the ancient tree down it had been so big, he was certain it was going to be way too much work to remove the stump.

"I told that old woman a thousand times, just put a bunch of flower pots on top that @#$% stump, but she just had to get it away from her precious flower garden. Now, I suppose you'll want me to fix your bumpers. This is why women and tree stumps are just too much darn trouble."

My husband said not a word back to him, just gathered his tools and Jeff, and wearily went home.

The next day the tree stump removal company he'd hired came and quite easily removed the offending stump. It only cost him four hundred dollars.

Bob-the-Boatman's mother planted petunias and seemed happy.

For a few weeks, Jeff stuck to old business ventures, like collecting and selling lizards and snakes to local pet shops. That lasted about two weeks, before his next business adventure landed him in trouble. He was charging kids to use his sling-shot to shoot squirrels out of trees. He wasn't out to harm squirrels, he knew his friends couldn't hit anything smaller than a house. Some senior citizens soon took offense to that plan. Soon, they were on the war path after him, instead of Bob-the-Boatman.

In the end, the lessons he learned from the tree stump adventure lasted and served him well. Today, he's still a wonderful leader, teacher, actor, martial arts, and entrepreneur in Hong Kong (as well as a very responsible husband and father).

Bob-the-Boatman stuck around for a few more years, before he went back to prison for the second time, for attempted murder in a bar brawl.  We never were on more than nodding terms as we passed after that tree was removed.

Personally, unless the offending tree stump is causing some problems with it's closeness to buildings, driveways, insect infestation, etc. I'm more inclined to take the "live and let live" approach. Here are some solutions that I've seen others use:

• Tree stumps make great tables for potted plants.
• Tree stumps make great hollowed out camp fires in your backyard.
• Tree stumps have been successfully covered with massive amounts of soil to a gentle slope and planted beautifully as a flowering garden.
• Tree stumps make great homes for squirrels and other small mammals. Put up a small decorative sign, "Do not disturb, babies on stump." Signed Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel
• Tree stump art in the form of chain saw sculptor art