Dear George,
We’ve lived in our Cincinnati home on Ludlow Avenue for
over forty years. We just have a very small yard on the front and east
sides of the house. The other day I counted the trees on our lawn.
There were twelve. It dawned on me that I’ve been unaware of most of
these trees for all the time we’ve lived here. Still more revealing, I
don’t know the species name of a single tree on our property.
That’s the complete opposite of my childhood
experience. We had a large lawn at our house on the Menominee River with
a lot of trees. Even today I could draw a map which would locate
virtually every one of those trees. And I knew the name of every one as
well (oak, cedar, spruce, etc.). One reason for this is that we spent so
much time playing out in the yard, and the trees were a significant part of our
environment. In addition, our parents were nature lovers, and they taught
us the names of all the trees, as well as birds, flowers, animals, and
insects. Trees were not just part of the surroundings, but most of them
had significant meaning, emotion, and memories connected with them. Here
are some of my father’s family photos that include images of trees in our
yard, along with a story or two for each species.
Norway pine
There were three pairs of Norway pines that stood on our
lawn: one pair toward the west border, outside our parents’ bedroom; one pair
visible from our dining room window in the center of the lawn; and a third pair
toward the eastern edge, closer to the river bank. The Norway pines, tall
and straight with their lowest branches perhaps twenty feet above the ground,
were the most stately trees on our property. Our house was built from
Norway pine planks, so we had a special connection to these trees. My
father always said we had many wonderful trees, but it was the Norways that
best symbolized our property and lives. We played most frequently around
the two Norways outside the dining room window, tying a rope between them to
serve as a goalpost in our touch football games. The Norways produced
large pine cones which I’d use in arts and crafts projects, constructing little
people by adding acorns and pipe cleaners. On one memorable occasion,
when we were playing cowboys and Indians, my brother Steve tied me to one of
the Norways, then pummeled me with his fists till I broke free and chased him
into the house where he hid behind our mother. When my sister Vicki
reached school age, our dad erected a swing between the easternmost pair of
Norways, and we all enjoyed it for years.
Oaks (right side of
photo)
There were three oaks, growing in a cluster together
outside our dining room door, and another tall oak was in the center of our
driveway. Providing a plentiful supply of acorns, the oaks attracted the
squirrel families that we saw in the yard every day. The acorns also
attracted little kids. Steven and I (and later Peter and Vicki) used them
as ammunition in daily acorn fights. Our one rule was to throw only at
the body, not at the head (to prevent putting out an eye). On one
horrifying occasion, Steve started climbing up one of the oaks as I was
throwing acorns at him, and a branch broke. He plummeted to the ground
and broke his arm, winding up at St. Joseph-Lloyd Hospital. A year or two later
my father built a tree house in the three-oak cluster which we accessed with
our bunkbed ladder. Steve, Frankie St. Peter, and I formed our clubhouse
there, requiring a secret password for admission (perhaps “Shazam”).
Two maples on a mound (left
side of photo)
We had maples in the front of the house (just outside the
dining room door) and also in the back of the house near the driveway (between
Vicki’s bedroom and the garage). The maples’ leaves turned bright red in
autumn, and I’d gather up a bunch and press and dry them for months inside an
encyclopedia volume. The maples’ fruit, called samara, are in the form of
little wings, and we liked to drop them and watching them flutter to the ground
like tiny helicopters. The two maples in the back yard grew on a mound
that was roughly five feet by eight feet. My Uncle Karl took me aside one
day and explained that the Menominee Indians had lived along the river,
including where our property was now located. Karl said it was very
likely that the mound on which the maples were growing was an Indian burial
mound. He said if I dug deep enough I could recover the treasures that
were buried in the graves. Perhaps even gold. He told me not to
tell my parents beforehand because they would forbid me from digging it
up. My uncle Karl had a perverse sense of humor, so I didn’t take him at
his word. I considered digging a smallish hole to find the treasure, but
I never got around to it.
Blue Spruce
The blue spruce was another of our most handsome
trees. Each year we chopped down our own Christmas tree from our family
property across the road, but the spruce in our front yard was the most
majestic Christmas tree of all. Because its branches were too dense and
too close to the ground, it was one of the few trees that we didn’t use for
climbing or other play activities.
Instead, we admired the spruce’s beauty from a distance.
Willow
The willow tree, on the west end of the lawn close to the
riverbank, was the best tree on our property for climbing. The lowest
branches were just a few feet off the ground, and there were plenty of
subsequent branches which allowed us to climb all the way up near the top of
the tree. My associations with the willow tree aren’t entirely
pleasurable. Sometimes, when I’d get in trouble for torturing Steven, my
mother would send me out to cut a branch off the willow tree to be used in my
spanking.
Young cedar trees (under the
righthand window)
A pair of small cedar trees grew outside my parents’
bedroom window on the west side of our house. They smelled good and
produced little pine cones that we used in craft projects. Deer fed on
cedar foliage in the winter, and, because we’d see them in the nextdoor field
from time to time, it’s likely that they visited our cedar trees in the night
as well.
Box Elder (branches at the
right edge of photo)
The box elder, near our outdoor stone fireplace, was the
other tree on our property that was excellent for climbing, though we’d have to
bring our bunk bed ladder out to reach the lowest branch. One summer we
put my sister Vicki’s pet chameleon on the trunk of the tree, but got
distracted and then couldn’t find it. We looked for that chameleon all
summer long but with no luck. I fantasized for years that its descendants
lived on the elder, but we never found one.
Birch on the river bank
There was a large stand of birch trees on the unmowed
property just to the east of our lawn, as well as a small cluster of birches on
the riverbank in front of our house. The birches were handsome and
romantic – romantic because we associated them with birchbark canoes of Native
Americans who occupied the river hundreds of years before Europeans’
arrival. We used the white birch bark for writing notes and for doing
various craft projects, e.g., making miniature canoes. We weren’t allowed
by our parents to strip bark off of the live birch trees, so we’d row across
the river to Pig Island and cut big strips of bark from fallen birch tree
trunks.
Vicki and Peter at my tag alder
camp table
There were a hundred yards or so of undeveloped, overgrown
property between our house and Riverside Boulevard, and it was swampy land,
largely populated by tag alder. Miserable and lonely in my mid-teens, I
decided to build a secret camp there to get away from my family and the rest of
the world. Tag alder, in my father’s view, was an inferior species of
tree, and I was allowed to cut down as much of it as I wanted. I used tag
alder to build a lean-to hut, a table, a rack for holding cooking utensils, a
pot holder over the fire pit, and other accessories. The photo shows my
sister Vicki and my brother Peter on a rare visit to my camp. If I
remember correctly, I blindfolded them so they could never find the way by
themselves.
My parents sold our house on the river in the early
nineteen seventies and moved into their newly renovated Farm at Birch Creek.
My dad had the Birch Creek property incorporated as a tree farm. Over the
next several years, he planted many hundreds of evergreens and hardwoods in the
open fields. We’d go for hikes in the forest there, and my dad would hug
his favorite trees. I may have inherited some of that tree-hugging
inclination.
Love,
Dave
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