THE TREE WHICH STOOD THE TEST OF TIME

 4286

I think I have a complicated relationship with trees.

I remember climbing a nearby mulberry tree when I was around 12, and chowing down on its lucious purple fruit, and coming home with the sticky juice smeared all over my shirt.

In recent years, I noticed a lone oak tree in a pasture; perhaps two miles from my home. It was obviously in distress, as there was an abundance of Spanish moss covering its branches. I actually felt sorry for the lovely little tree, and spent hours one morning pulling excess moss down from its branches with a steel rake. To no avail. The poor little tree eventually succumbed, and all that remains now is a skeleton of its former self.

And then there is a nearby tree, I'm not sure what variety, along a busy four lane highway, and which was, through no fault of its own, involved in a one car accident several years ago. A young lady died in the wee hours of the morning. I actually saw the remains of the car, and the ambulance, and the attendants doing their work, as I pedaled my bike along the other side of the highway. I don't know why, perhaps the result of a personal remembrance and memorial, but I retrieved a small piece of bark that had been shattered in the accident, and I keep it in my desk drawer.

Then, there was what I refer to as the "Posing Tree" in Kissimmee State Park. Around 1985 my parents and all of their grandchildren posed on and around it. Most of the grandchildren sat on this horizontal branch about five feet off the ground. My parents stood beneath. I still have that poignant picture. Daddy and Mama have long since gone on to their reward, along with one of the grandchildren. My wife and I visited this same tree a few years ago; a full third of a century after eleven members of my immediate family posed for that beloved photo. It looked so old and so forlorn. The reason was patently obvious.

However, the tree which I remember best, and think of most often was (and is) a tree which stood (and stands) across the street from my childhood church. You see, I used to walk past it on the way to my elementary Sunday School class. At that time, we met in an old wooden frame white house which was owned by the church. And the tree. It was (and is) one of the largest oak trees I had (and have) ever seen on this (or any other) planet.

Six and a half decades have come and gone, and the old wooden frame white house was demolished years ago. And the church no longer owns the property. As a matter of fact, I also have an affiliation with the building which replaced it. You see, a branch of a national bank, in which I do my financial business, covers about thrice the acreage on which the original Sunday School building once stood.

But, as I have already inferred, that big, beautiful old oak tree still graces the premises, and I can't help but admire it, and reminisce about "the good old days" when I walked past it on the way to my Sunday School class. Speaking of reminiscing, I was in this bank the other day, and began to share my story with one of the tellers. She seems fascinated to learn that this 75 year old man had walked past that same immense green tree, and stared up into its amazing canopy when he was just barely a tenth of the age he is today.

I cannot help but hope that this grand old lovely oak tree, which has graced "the City of Oaks and Azaleas" for over a century, continues to stand the test of time, and outlives me, and my personal memories of it.

by Bill McDonald, PhD