When I saw them growing on a fence last week, I was immediately taken back to childhood.

But not for the reasons you might think.

Oh, the things you can think!

I am definitely a child of the ’70s. And that means I grew up with a healthy dose of Dr. Seuss, both in school and on those animated specials on weeknight network TV. Those specials were “must see TV” back in the day, especially for kids like me but also for Mom and Dad. And the fencerow beauties in the picture above took me straight back to one of the more memorable ones.

The Lifted Lorax. His mission, should he choose to accept it (and he did), was to save the Truffula trees.

The thought of a tree with a trunk but no branches and a tuft (or would that be a Truff?) of hair-like vegetation at the top just blew my 10-year-old mind. So imagine what happened to that 10-year-old mind (trapped in a 55-year-old body) when I saw this:

They’re not trees, and they weren’t the amazing colors of Dr. Seuss, but they were there! A living organism, with a head of “hair!” Frozen in an ever-blowing gale. Now you, too, know the tale, of the Truffula vine of Lawrence, Kansas.

Man, I love Dr. Seuss.