Hug a Tree? No Thanks
by Karen Williams - Oviedo Voice - Nov. 15, 2003
“That’s the one!” I squealed to Amy, my Realtor, who in turn squealed her tires. “That’s exactly the kind of tree, er, house I’m looking for!”
While in the Winter Springs area looking for a home, I’d explained to Amy that I was from Oregon and considered the woodsy look to be mandatory. Even if a house had dirt floors and a “condemned” sign, I’d take it if it had a sufficiently delightful tree to beckon squirrels, birds, courageous kittens, and kites.
So I bought a house. But even more, I bought a hunk of a hearty live oak tree that stood squarely in the front yard, seeming to proclaim, “Oregon, eat your heart out.” Now, I’m not a strong proponent of dating outside one’s species, but frankly, I was in love. I named my tree “Trevor,” and in subsequent days, I heard him whisper my name as he waved to me in the breeze and scraped his limbs across the roof in a downpour. He was there for me. He was solid, dependable. He had roots.
Alas, my ardor soon began to fade. The ink was barely dry on my mortgage when Trevor began dropping stuff all over the place and refusing to pick it up--little brown strings of seeds that got tracked into the house and car and even once turned up in a tuna casserole at supper. When, grumbling, I climbed a ladder to clean Trevor’s residue from the roof, mounds of the dusty stuff blew on to my sweating face and arms, sticking there and rendering me a traumatic sight that will forever haunt the mailman. Daily, I push-broomed the debris from the sidewalk and driveway, only to find it building back up. I bagged it, buried it, even used it for hamster bedding. The critters didn’t like it any more than I did; the cussed stuff even clogged up their fitness wheel.
Trevor eventually sensed my disillusionment and ceased the seeding frenzy. Things returned to normal, as I basked in his shade and he shaded my baskets of posies. Life couldn’t have been sweeter, even if he were spouting maple syrup.
But lately it has started up again--Trevor is making a mess. I’m not adverse to an acorn here and there, but my truculent tree, ever driven to excess, is dropping acorns by the barge load, and neighborhood squirrels are looking dazed and bloated. A stroll from the front door to the car is certain to find a hapless person beaned at least once by an acorn and possibly with rump meeting pavement as a result of the walking-on-marbles effect.
As if Trevor’s habits weren’t sufficiently aggravating, I now find that he needs a major haircut to the tune of hundreds of dollars. And unless I can find a hot market for acorns somewhere, that money must come from my pocket. Seedy, acorn-spewing Trevor has turned high maintenance. Perhaps I’ll hire an Oregon lumberjack--complete with flannel shirt, gleaming ax, and rapper hat--to drop by and encourage Trevor to mend his ways. Not so much as a nick or a scratch--just a stern lecture and perhaps a flip chart showing the wonders of a modern sawmill.
I recall the words of poet Joyce Kilmer: “I think that I shall never see/ apoem lovely as a tree.” Right about now, I’d almost choose the poem.
Copyright 2003, Karen Williams
