If a Tree Falls in the Backyard …
The lovely Mrs. Borengasser and I own trees. We keep them in the yard, a few in the front, most in the back.
I used to think of a tree as the perfect pet. It doesn’t require a lot of attention, just a little rain and sunshine.
It can amuse itself. You never have to pet a tree, and it doesn’t continually rub up against your ankles. If you go on vacation, you don’t have to drop your tree off at the vet. A tree doesn’t throw up on the carpet.
Of course, a tree won’t come when it’s called or fetch a Frisbee. But it’ll give you shade and beautiful foliage without expecting a beef jerky in exchange. And a tree’s bark is always worse than its bite. Always.
If you and your tree want to do something together, you can participate in the oxygen cycle. Just pull up a chair and exhale at each other. You breathe its oxygen, and it breathes your carbon dioxide. There’s none of this throw the ball, bring back the ball, throw the ball, bring back the ball bunk. Symbiosis in action – what could be more gratifying?
As I would do with any pet, I began naming my trees. There was Henry the Hickory, a wacky, nutty rascal, with a mischievous sense of humor. Our dignified, quite serious smoketree was Reginald. And the gorgeous, statuesque spruce was Marilyn.
But then one night, a violent storm uprooted our enormous tree, Wally. It would have smashed a storage shed if it hadn’t fallen against another tree, Harold.
The next morning, a tree specialist took one look and told me that not only would the uprooted tree have to be cut up and removed, but the one it had fallen against as well.
Plus, he said that all our trees were infected with parasites and should be sprayed. Also, many limbs were dead or dying and needed to be removed. What could I do? I told him to go ahead.
Now, after spending a small fortune, I look at the trees with a different eye, mainly jaundiced. I hate mimosa trees, as prolific as bread mold, little more than weeds with bark. I think of elms as puny, namby-pamby, sickly things. Gum trees are guileful and shifty, acting like attractive shade trees all summer, and then suddenly dumping several million gum balls in your yard one afternoon in autumn.
My trees are unbelievably sneaky. Oh, sure, they look beautiful and majestic above ground. But below the surface, just out of sight, it’s a different matter. Every moment, their roots are slowly, determinedly inching their way toward my unsuspecting sewer pipes. This is no petty vandalism, some subterranean arboreal prank. These trees are up to premeditated mischief, intent on nothing less than a total coup d'état of my septic system.
With a start, I realize I’ve been terribly naïve. But then it occurs to me – why shouldn’t I be? In oak years, I’m only twelve.
I look out on the backyard and see nothing but aggravation.
It’s enough to make a person bitter and vengeful. Frequently, I stride across the yard with an ax, just daring a leaf to blow into my face or an acorn to land on my head. I sometimes sit up late into the night with a six pack and a chainsaw, plotting my revenge.
Then, one day, I remember the tree who saved the shed. For all that tree knew, I could have been in the shed during the storm. Like a dog who rushes into a burning building to save its master, with no thought for its own safety, this walnut tree stood between a huge, toppling maple and my shed – that shed with possibly me inside.
With shame, I understand that Harold the Walnut took a bullet for me. It cost him his life.
It’s the stuff of heroism, the kind of altruistic act you hear about from time to time. But it happened here. To me.
Over the past few months, I’d only been thinking of myself. My trees deserve better. These trees – stately and solemn and dignified – make no complaint. They live and die with an astonishing resignation and sense of selflessness, giving much, asking little, content just to be kindly remembered by Joyce Kilmer.
I resolve to change my attitude, to show my trees that I care, that I appreciate who they are and what they do. After all, what’s a little spraying and pruning and raking among friends?
And as far Harold, the walnut tree that saved my shed? Well, he won’t be forgotten. Because when I examine my genealogy, as I trace my ancestry, Harold has become more than just a part of the family tree. He is the family tree.