A Tree Hug

I grew up under the tall oaks and pines in  Georgia. My second story bedroom window looked out into the crown of dogwoods and holly trees. Sunlight filtered through the higher oaks and pines to gently waken me each morning. Branches tapped on the windows and leaves whispered all through moonlit nights. I watched the trees change through all the seasons and they watched over me.

   On the school yard we hid our small bodies behind wide pine trunk after wide pine trunk as we stole our way to the front porch to kick the can to free all the prisoners. As we scattered in happiness to hide again, the big tops of the pines way overhead shaded us from the blazing southern sunshine. Their growth kept the ground beneath our feet cool in comparison to the burning sand by the roadside. I remember those pines as if it was today, the smell of the coarse wood and sticky sap that stuck to our hands, how the bark grew in rough large sections and if you broke a chunk off it would be about an inch thick with a soft underside. We’d scratch little notes on pine bark chunks as if it was paper and give them to our friends when we were young.

   We’d also find empty crispy cicada shells on the bark, stuck on with their velcro legs. We’d pick them off and put them on our clothes, wearing the little dragon skins all day like they were a fancy broach. Sometimes the teacher asked us to please discard the adornments.

   Church yard had the same big old pines. Young teens would stand outside after church in circles, reluctant to leave and go to our boring homes. If there was ever any silence from the joking chatter, the pine needles could be heard whispering, carrying along their own secrets to their neighbouring tree friends.

   There are big oaks, hickories, and elms that are all our friends. Trees became our childhood companions. They’d talk to us when we were quiet and sad. They’d let us sit and rest against their trunks. They’d throw us shade as we toiled away at lawn care. I remember coming home from long bike rides and looking forward to reaching our shaded driveway. The coolness and shade would brush against my hot face and refresh me as much as a drink of cold water.

   There were large pecan and oak trees around each of my grandparents yards. At Grandpa Toews we’d help pick up pecans under the pecans. Large trunks that we couldn’t reach around in a shared hug and stout sturdy branches are the features of pecan trees. The crown stretched far from the trunk and steadily dropped their fruit in autumn. We loved operating Grandpa’s different rollers and flexible coil baskets on end of sticks that picked up the pecans. We’d carry pecans around in our pocket, mastering the art of crunching them together to break the shells and pick out the lovely fresh nut. I’ve tried to make sure each of my children experiences picking up  pecans from the ground and breaking them to eat.

   We also had hickory trees with those really hard nuts that made great slingshot ammunition. We could only break those with a hammer on our concrete steps or garage floor. The nut meat had to be picked out with a nail but we laboured to eat the sweet hickory nut pieces that we found.

   Trees are old friends that stay right  in place and wait for you to come back. Some people sort of resemble trees. Not so much in looks but in the way that they love you back no matter what. They’ll wait for you and they’ll be just the same to you every time. Maybe they even grow a little grander and kinder but they never let you down.

   Hurricane Helene blew through my old community in Jefferson county and i prayed that night for my family and friends safety. They listened to trees snapping and falling as the rain sodden roots of the big loyal trees gave way. We prayed that the angels would stand guard over loved ones safety. In the morning, even before daylight, we got messages that everyone was fine but they lost a lot of trees. The first thought i had was to thank God my family didn’t get hurt but the second was sadness for the devastation and changed landscape. Big trees that were older than my parents fell and crushed house roofs and vehicles. They say the eye of the hurricane went over the community and maybe 70 percent of trees are gone. The young trees were flexible enough to blow with the wind but the big old friends from childhood, many of those friends tipped over, root mass pulling up out of red Georgia clay. Good old friends getting sawed up and put on piles to burn or perhaps, only if they’re lucky, get turned into useful lumber.

   Those whispering pines at my old school are way fewer in number and only one is left at church. Pine Crest is the name of that slight crest of land where the pines welcomed the newcomers. I hope the remaining pines tell the new young trees about that day when the strangers came from far away and stood around and talked and then my Great Uncle Roy began to build  a cinder block church with his one arm in 1952. I hope they tell the young trees about all the children who’ve hopped in and out of vehicles to run under the pine trees shade for many years now. Holdemans, Gearigs, Unruhs, Schneiders, Hibners, Dycks, Loewen’s, Goossen’s, Dillers and many more names have ancestors who treasure memories of those early days in Pinecrest.

   I hope the lone tree left behind the big golden brick church will spread the information through all his fine root hairs to all the roots left from trees that toppled, he can tell them their place now is to create good soil for new growth as they die away. He can stay awhile longer and tell the newer younger trees yet to come about the big church getting built in 1962 when the people attending were too many in number for the cinder block building. Perhaps the old pine can sing the melodies he’s heard coming from open church doors and repeat sermons from old Southern ministers that have gone on. Young babies have grown into old men and their feet have repeatedly walked the ground into the same church doors for their whole lives. Other familiar faces have left and just come back to visit from time to time. Many eyes have looked up into the crown of those old pines and remembered the good old days and it seems the pine trees stayed just as big and just as grand as they were in back in childhood without changing at all even as we grew taller and wider.

   Now many old trees have fallen in Hurricane winds. The young children will remember the storm and the large groups of men who came to clean up. They’ll remember being out of power for days. They’ll remember how many big trees fell and got cleaned up by chainsaws. Perhaps new trees will get planted and they’ll one day tell their children they remember when that tree was planted and why.

  But no trees can ever replace those old friends who welcomed my dad and his family to Georgia. New young trees will never know the stories of Mr. Rooks getting to know the “bearded people” and finding out they were called Mennonites. Somebody needs to tell the young ones, pass on the legacy of being a Georgia mennonite. There are names on tombstones in the cemetery that would know all the stories and carry the torch in their heart. Some of them loved to tell the stories and did their part when still with us. Now it’s their family members that are left, some spouses, some children, some grandchildren. So many loved ones have gone on and now it’s our turn to grow, just like the old trees blew down and made space for new young growth. The soil is softened from the storm and we cry about the empty holes left behind but it also fills me with a fire that i want to hear the stories left, treasure the old trees that still stand. My Uncle’s first birthday since leaving us was yesterday. He was the second of my uncles to leave us and we miss his presence a lot.

  I’d like to sit beside my uncles as a group and hear the stories the way they tell them. I’m glad i have the ‘Fifty Years in Georgia’ book that someone put together with all the history. I have bits of my Grandma’s old diary and the old family books. It is not the same as hearing the stories in person but as i read, i perfectly recall hearing the stories told the way my Dad and uncles told stories. I laugh and I cry.

   Getting stories out of the Unruh brothers always takes a bit of cajoling. Slowly as we ask questions the stories come out. They rarely tell on themselves, it was always the other brother.

    One good Ga story is young Lloyd climbing through the church attic and jostling the ceiling joists above the congregations heads. It happened to be the same night there was reports of an escaped  prisoner so nerves were a little on edge until it was confirmed it was just Lloyd in the attic, not a criminal. Some other boys were missing church that night and had their own stories to tell.

   We’d hear memories about the first singing quartet that the congregation liked to listen to, the Swamp Brothers. Eldon Ensz, Jona Nikkel , Elmer Diller and Richard Johnson were friends of mine just because i heard their names mentioned in stories although i only knew two of them personally.  And my Dad still gets a wistful look in his eye about when the Loewen’s would come for haircuts and they’d stay and sing at Grandpa’s house. They apparently sounded better than the Chuckwagon Gang.

   There are stories of the original youth group and the nicknames they gave each other. My uncles would chuckle and make a small comment that would bring another memory about another time. And the tears always start when tender memories of loved ones get touched on. One point that always comes out of storytelling is how important it is to keep the faith.

   So many big old trees that shaded my childhood have fallen. The big storm hastened them to their natural end of going back to the earth. The heart has stopped its life.

   I know a local man here who carves items out the hearts of trees and then varnishes them into a thing of beauty. “Each heart of the tree is unique,” he told me. “Just like it was unique in its form, shaped by the circumstances, weather and neighbouring trees around as it grew.

   Just so, I was uniquely shaped by the people around me. When they are gone, i feel each shape in myself and grieve the loss because they influenced me at my most tender age. With their influence, i was strengthened and inspired in my growth.

   Now while the soil is softened by the storm and the landscape of my childhood is so quickly changed, each young tree becomes imprtant. Perhaps they weren’t so noticeable before because the large pecan or the spreading elm took all the attention. Now it is time to grow and tell the stories. It’s time to grow up to be the big tree and shade the new young.

   The memories of the big trees want to fade but it’s important to remember the heart of them, remember the years that shaped them. How did you grow so tall and strong, trees of my childhood? How did you survive all those winds and storms and droughts? I ask questions and I know the answer. I know the truth. They had their roots down deep into a life giving source of water. The same Source of strength is available to me and all I need to do is reach out and grow.

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Tree Song (by Evie Tornquist?)

I saw a tree by a riverside

One day as I walked along

Straight as an arrow and pointing to the sky Growing tall and strong

How do you grow so tall and strong?

I said to the riverside tree

This is the song that my tree friend sang to me…

I've got roots growing down to the water

I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine

And the fruit that I bear is a sign of life in me

I am shade from the hot summer sun-down

I am nest for the birds of the heaven

I'm becoming what the Lord of trees has meant me to be …

A strong young tree.