If you want to call me a tree hugger I don't mind. I do love
trees. It makes me sick to the heart to see them cut down for
any reason.
As a child, I remember the day my dad told me our huge Elm
trees were coming down because they had Dutch elm disease. These
were sprawling giants that carried my friends and me on high
adventures of the imagination. Our tree houses were the decks of
ships at sea, a battle tank, a space ship, and a castle in the
sky. We'd climb to the furthest reaches of the branches that
gently bent and swayed as we pumped up and down like a carnival
ride. We were on top of the world seen by those who we would
chose for a verbal assault on high or invisible to those who
were too engaged with earthly things to notice the human-shaped
birds chirping in the branches.
Our trees grew close enough for us to swing from one to the
next like Tarzan. Each member of the elite "tree swingers" had
to leap from the lowest branch to another limb in order to be
allowed to climb up to the roost that was always protected by
the tree lords. I passed my first test at age 8, one of the
youngest in the neighborhood, much to the displeasure of my mom
who promised that someday I would end up breaking my arm or
worse. She was right. But it wasn't in one of the Elms. It was
in the old Apple tree reaching for a giant winter green that
sent me tumbling to the ground. Little boys’ arms aren't
designed to bend backwards. The pain didn't seem to bother me. I
was more concerned someone might find out and make fun of me. A
quick trip to Dr. Owens, a painful twist and tug, a hot plaster
cast and I was back in the Elms by the end of the day.
Then there was time my friend and I taunted the biggest kid
in the neighborhood. We planted a couple of ripe tomatoes right
on his bike as he rode by and went scurrying up that old apple
tree for refugee. Bobbie Petersen came back screaming and
grabbed the branch under our feet and tried pulling his
200-pound body up into the branches. Suddenly the entire limb
gave way and my friend and I and the branch came crashing down
on Bobbie's leg boring a hole into his knee. I had never seen so
much blood or heard anyone cry out in as much pain as Bobbie.
Our archenemy suddenly became our dearest friends as we pulled
the branch off his leg and ran for help. We never taunted or
feared Bobbie every again. The Apple tree, meantime, was rotting
and had to be cut down. We cried and even had a funeral for it.
But the Elms were different. You almost expected Apple trees
to pass on, but not the Elms. They were special. They were
absolutely huge. The only thing taller in my hometown was the
big grain elevator. We begged and begged to save the trees. We
offered up ourselves as servants to whatever task our parents
could want for an arboreal reprieve. We even threatened to camp
up in the trees, refusing to come down until the danger from the
saws had passed. As a final concession my dad promised to plant
twice as many Oaks to take their place, and to build a 3-story
tree house for us to play in.
It was a hot, sticky Saturday in August when the tree
trimmers came. My four Elms came crashing down one by one
shaking the ground like thunder, each thud louder than the
first. My little board perch at the top of the world lay smashed
on the sidewalk. I collected several bird nests that fell on the
ground and put them on top of the garage, as if to make up for
them being stripped from the leaf covered canopies. Branches and
leaves and sawdust covered the ground like mounds of snow. I hid
in the branches of a nearby lilac bush fighting back tears,
hoping now one would see me. To my surprise I found Bobbie
Petersen in the same bushes. We mourned in silence but
understood each other completely.
And when it was over and the branches and limbs chopped and
chipped and hauled away I felt so empty inside. There was no
place to run and hide, no place to dream and pretend, no space
that belonged to me alone above the adult world below.
It's the same feeling I get even today when I see a mighty
Oak bulldozed to make way for even more development. Why? Is it
necessary? I get flashbacks to the many hours spent in my aerial
perch gently swaying in the summer breeze with the sweet music
of rustling leaves surrounding me. I can practically smell the
mountain of vibrantly colored leaves that blanketed our lawn in
the fall. And, I recall the distinct clicking of the ice and
snow covered branches rattled by frigid winter winds conjuring
up images of great shadowed skeletons against the gray winter
skies.
Blame it on the little boy in me that still sees a tree as
one of the most beautiful of all of God's creations and weeps
when something as trivial as a building is put in it’s place.
