This morning our local
paper printed a letter from an angry reader concerning a developer's
plans to bulldoze yet another wooded area into oblivion. I happen
to know the area referred to, because there's a small path through
it that is just large enough and smooth enough for my mother's
wheelchair. She particularly loves to be taken for a stroll in
those woods, because getting out and away from people and pavement
isn't easy when you're 95 and infirm.
I remember that once
when we had paused beside a little creek that meanders through
the trees and falls down a small slope, she looked into the gully
and said: "My, that is a bosky dell!"
"Bosky?" I asked.
"Bosky," my mother
the English teacher said firmly. "It means covered with trees
and shrubs. Thickly grown. And a dell is a..."
"I know," I said, falling
easily into our mother/teacher, daughter/pupil mode even though
I am 66 years old. "A dell is a small valley or hollow, usually
secluded."
"Good girl," she said,
and we walked on. Readers of this column know that I am not a
fan of sprawl (see Dante
in the City). I find myself wondering how long it will take
people to realize that when we take out trees, we take out the
oxygen producers that keep us alive. Humans inhale oxygen and
exhale carbon dioxide. Trees inhale carbon dioxide and exhale
oxygen. It's that simple.
It's a symbiotic relationship,
those trees and us. Anyone who doubts that trees breathe need
only do a very simple experiment, one that I used to do with kindergarten
children, who understood it easily: tie a clear plastic bag over
the leafy end of a twig on a sunny day. Wait for a while, and
then check the bag. You will see small water droplets condensed
on the inside of the bag, sure evidence of the moist breath of
the tree as it exhales the oxygen. With trees, you call it transpiration,
not respiration, but I suspect it comes to the same thing. You
can't live without either one.
But beyond the life-giving
oxygen that they produce, beyond the cooling shade they offer
on a hot summer's day, beyond the protection they offer to birds
and squirrels and other creatures, trees are just good for the
soul. They help us to mark the seasonal changes, and they are
beautiful in every season.
The eponymous character
in the comic strip Rose is Rose has a favorite tree that
she calls her 'Let It Be' tree. When life becomes too frantic
or upsetting, she simply goes and leans against the tree, and
her problems soon come into perspective. That idea resonates with
me, because when I was a child, I was best friends with a California
live oak tree.
I loved it not just
because it grew near my house, but because I knew it intimately.
I climbed it so often that I could have scrambled up it blindfolded.
My father hung ropes and a trapeze from its strong limbs, and
I used them to swing to branches well out of reach by any other
means. There was a tip-top seat formed by small branches (in retrospect,
frighteningly small) where I could look out over the whole of
the Santa Clara Valley. It was also beyond the reach of my acrophobic
older brother, even beyond the reach of the hose when he tried
to squirt water at me.
When my feelings were
hurt, or when I simply wanted to be alone, I would repair to my
heights and think whatever philosophical thoughts an eight-year-old
girl can think. I often dream that I am up in its branches. I
know that I could still climb the first 6 feet of it from memory.
My hands and feet recall exactly how to move to the notches my
father cut into the huge trunk, and my right hand would automatically
reach for the gall that looked like a saddle horn, to pull me
up into the crotch of the tree.
If I could go back
there today, I would press myself against the roughly-lichened
bark and stand in silent communion with my oak, to salute it as
a still-living part of my childhood.
But that oak isn't
the only tree that has been special to me. There have been a few
others, among them a magnificent sycamore on the lawn outside
the library at my college. We were not allowed to climb it, so
I had no intimate connection to the tree, just a respect for its
size and shapeliness. At the time I wasn't even aware that it
made a great impression, but it, too, has appeared often in my
dreams, seen from a distance.
At present, I live
in a house that sits beside a handsome white oak. It has a double
crown, and is a good 70 feet tall. We fight a continuing battle
with our neighbor's ivy which wants to climb it, but that's about
all the care it requires. This year its acorn production is truly
Brobdingnagian. Botanists tell us that the trees in our area are
impelled to be especially fertile in response to our four-year
drought. That's all very well, but those of us who are enduring
the hail of acorns — BANG! Rattle-rattle-rattle as they roll
off our roofs — wish they could find another reaction to
the weather.
We used to have a brother
oak at the other end of our house, but when several of its overhanging
limbs became dangerous to our well-being, we regretfully decided
to have it taken down. I knew enough to be away from the house
on the day the cutters came, but when I returned in late afternoon,
they still hadn't finished. They had had to rope all the big limbs
to keep them from crashing down on our roof, and that took a long
time. What met my eyes was the stripped trunk of the mighty tree,
standing tall and naked. It was like watching a slow death by
dismemberment, and I have felt guilty ever since.
Beyond even the specific
trees that I have loved, there are whole categories of trees that
hold my special affections:
- Redwoods, those silent giants that stand in forests where
sounds are muffled and sunlight breaks through in long, mote-filled
shafts. It is trite to say that visiting them is like going
to church, but it is. Maybe better.
- Acacias, whose improbable, fuzzy, bright yellow flowers make
almost everybody smile, and then sneeze. If there's a clown
tree, the acacia is it.
- Dogwoods, for their charming offerings of flowers, bright
red berries and colorful autumn leaves
- Crab apples just because they are Spring's special gift
- Fruit trees of all kinds, for their bounty and beauty
- White birches. When I was a kid, my great uncle often delighted
me by writing to me from his Idaho ranch, using the papery bark
as a postcard. And anyone who has watched Dr. Zhivago (or, for
that matter, vacationed in New England or read Last of the Mohicans)
feels the intensely romantic pull of the birch and fern forests
of the far north.
The list could go on
a lot longer, but the point is made, I think. If you, like me,
love trees for any or all of the above reasons, consider joining
whatever organization you can find to promote our healthy forests
and slow the developers' axes. If you go to a search engine and
type in "Tree Preservation" you will find that most of
the sites are from England (email address .uk), but they are worth
visiting to pick up ideas about where to start. Almost any individual
can start a petition for a TPO (Tree Preservation Order).
Another good beginning
is to type in "Heritage Trees." Most areas of the country
have programs that designate an especially fine example of a tree
species as a "Heritage Tree," which protects it. Your local county
agricultural agent is also a fine source of information on this
subject.
