Some of my best friends have been trees. Maybe that’s why my heart ached a little this week when Hattiesburg attorney Erik Lowrey posted a photo on Facebook of a beautiful old pine tree that fell during the storm that rolled through this area a couple of weeks ago.
The tree, a fixture on Lowrey’s rural property in the Sunrise community near Petal for more than a century, was probably planted sometime just after the turn of the last century – about the same time the very first Model T rolled off Henry Ford’s production line in Detroit and right around the time Lyndon B. Johnson was born.
After surviving 110 or so tornado and hurricane seasons, I suppose it was just a matter of time before the ol’ gal came tumbling down.
In the end, it was a simple bolt of lightning that brought her back to Earth.
Measuring 116 inches in circumference and some 33 inches across, she stood high above Lowrey’s property keeping a watchful eye on everything for as far as the eye could see.
Back in the small northeastern Oklahoma town I grew up in, there was a maple tree in my parent’s front yard that they planted shortly after building the home in the early 1970s.
Most summers, you could find the neighbor kid and me perched in its branches pretending to shoot down enemy planes or spying on the Russians.
In the summer of 1977, it became the Death Star, its branches representing the evil reach of Darth Vader’s clutch on the Rebel Alliance.
A few years later, it became a central figure in my attempt to escape from native warriors trying to shoot me with poisonous darts, ala “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
In 1984, my parents uprooted a live Christmas tree (roots and all) from a tree farm and after using it during the holidays, my father planted it in the front yard across from the maple tree.
Despite many, many attempts by my father to prune both of those trees to death, they stood watch over the house for years and did their best to protect my childhood memories from disappearing into the Oklahoma dust.
A few years ago, a particularly harsh Oklahoma ice storm took them both out and the landscape of my parents’ front yard changed forever.
The art of tree climbing was something I always tried to pass along to my four sons, and I couldn’t have been more proud a dozen or so years ago when they discovered an abandoned treehouse in the woods near our home in the mountains of western Maine.
The Russian spies were substituted by Iraqi soldiers and the Death Star was replaced by the evil Zurg of “Toy Story” fame, but those branches always looked the same to me.
It thrilled me to see them introduce themselves to their new “friend” and it helped remind me of the important things in life – like climbing a tree to escape those pesky native warriors and their poisonous darts.
Pine trees aren’t much for climbing, but if you have ever spent any time watching the way they sway to and fro, there’s something magical about the way those beautiful trees dance in sync with one another.
Erik’s loblolly pine may have returned to the same earth from whence it came, but a plan has been hatched that will help his old friend live for many years to come.
In the not-so-distant future, wood from that tree will be used to make tongue-in-groove pine flooring that will be used in a new building in downtown Hattiesburg that is being constructed by Erik’s son and daughter-in-law, Shawn and Ginger.
In a city built by the lumber industry, it’s only fitting that the next generation of downtown buildings include a little bit of its historic past.
Gustafson is the publisher of The PineBelt NEWS and he admits to being a tree hugger – if only for nostalgia sake. He lives in the Parkhaven neighborhood of Hattiesburg.
Branching Out
by John Gorka
When I grow up I want to be a tree
Want to make my home with the birds and the bees
And the squirrels, they can count on me
When I grow up to be a tree
I'll let my joints get stiff, put my feet in the ground.
Take the winters off and settle down.
Keep my clothes till they turn brown.
When I grow up, I'm gonna settle down.
I'm gonna reach, I'm gonna reach.
I'm gonna reach, reach for the sky.
I'm gonna reach, I'm gonna reach
I'm gonna reach, till I know why.
When the spring comes by I'm gonna get real green.
If the dogs come by I'm gonna get real mean.
On windy days, I'll bend and lean.
When I grow up I'm gonna get real green.
If I should fall in storm or slumber
please don't turn me into lumber.
I'd rather be a Louisville slugger
swinging for the seats...
