Say it ain’t so: What am I supposed to do, eat grapefruit?

I looked out the back window of our house. Something looked different. Something had changed.

There was more light coming through the old wooden picket fence we share with the house next door.

Say it ain’t so. The orange tree was gone. Somebody had cut it down. The only thing left was a stump.

Now, if this were “The Giving Tree,” a stump would be OK. A boy can sit on a stump and rest. A stump is a gift to the weary.

This stump wasn’t a gift. This stump was a stump. No one is sitting on that stump.

That tree was planted by our former neighbor Alex Sarad. Alex was a farmer and so maybe he brought a level of professional expertise to the home fruit market.

I’ve been eating its oranges for 30 years. It took awhile but I worked myself into second position for the crop due to proximity and appreciation. I didn’t water the tree, I didn’t fertilize the tree but I heaped praise on it and that helped move me to the inner circle.

If you live in Bakersfield, you’ve probably had some good oranges because they do well here. There are a million good trees all over town. Backyard, front yard and farms on the east side like Anxious Acres, which is no longer in business. In the spring, there’s no smell more heavenly than orange blossoms.

We had an orange tree growing up. I’m not sure what happened to that tree after we left, but no one was cutting that tree down when we were there. That would be like capping the spring at Source Perrier.

The tree next door, now a stump, never missed a year. Dry years, wet years, cold years, warm ones. The oranges were never that big, nor were they perfect but they were as close to orange fruit candy as you could ask for.

Orange candy, especially if you waited and left them on the tree. Conventional orange wisdom says oranges are best picked in December. However, if you can hold back, the oranges become even sweeter in January, February and March.

I’d keep 20 or 30 in the outside fridge, I’d send a bucket to Mom and Dad, I’d offer them to the kids. There were enough oranges for everybody and plenty left for the flocks of birds that would descend in the spring.

When the tree was loaded with fruit, there was enough to eat and juice. Fresh squeezed orange juice may be one of the greatest luxuries on earth.

Ten years ago, I bought an orange picker — one of those adjustable poles with a basket on the end. That gave me some range. Before the picker, I’d stand on the top of the Jacuzzi cover and use a heavy rake to grab the oranges from the branches that were kind of on my side of the fence if you tilted your head this way or that.

With the adjustable picker, I abandoned all pretense of boundaries and reached over the fence and went as high and far as 12 feet would take me.

I wouldn’t pick the tree clean. I’d just lighten the crop. We wouldn’t want those branches to break and not be productive the following year.

I’m willing to concede all living things are mortal except certain kinds of moss and the bristlecone pine, which seems to almost live forever.

The orange tree had been somewhat diminished the last few years and who knows, maybe it had a fatal disease. However, the tree hadn’t given up and neither had its neighbor next door.

If I were more mature, and this wouldn’t be a bad time to start, I might be philosophical rather than flummoxed. Adopt the same posture about the tree we do people: Don’t be sorry they’re gone, be glad you were lucky enough to spend time with them.

What do I do now? Eat grapefruit? There are a million grapefruit trees in the neighborhood. Grapefruit trees never seem to die. You don’t see any grapefruit stumps around.

Grapefruit have a place in the pantheon of citrus trees, but that place is slightly below the lofty perch oranges occupy.

The demise of Alex’s orange tree follows the fig trees that were across the street from our old house half a block away. One produced green figs and the other black. Not everybody likes figs but for those of us who do, one month a year we were in fig heaven.

One day, the fig trees disappeared. They didn’t even leave a stump. It was like they were never there.

Trees, and especially fruit trees, are part of the architecture, landscape and lore of a neighborhood. One day, and it will have to be soon, when I become a much bigger person, I will accept the departure of the fig and orange trees with studied equanimity.

In the meantime, I will remember. That kind of sweetness is much appreciated and not easily forgotten.