some trees I have known

I was thinking that maybe the rohn report should be more journalistic. It is a report after all. Write about current events in contemporary society, real things.

So with that in mind I searched around for something more real, journalistic, and came up with ‘some trees I have known’. There’s something. I know alot of trees. Trees in various neighborhoods and various guises that stick in my mind. Trees that I visit all the time, companions of mine. Trees that have a story to tell.

I assembled a list of 4 or 5 trees and decided to go visit them. Got up on my bike and rode out, ready for adventure and whatever comes my way.

I cruised down the hill, past the Sunset apartments, thru the light, took a right and found myself on Broadway. It’s a familiar route, but always different, never the same. The traffic patterns continuously change, the angle of the light and the slant of the shadows change, the dance of the traffic lights suspended up there above the intersections and the rhythms they impose on the cars below (green amber red) are unique and in the moment. The trees and the birds that fly thru them and the birds sitting on the wire and how they arrange themselves. The pilgrims, I mean the pedestrians, walking down the sidewalk, where are they going and why? The adventure begins as soon as I start to notice all these subtle changes and details of things and how unique they are. Like they weren’t like that before and now they are.

There are trees along the street, here and there. There are trees as part of the landscaping set back from the street. Sometimes you see a tree in the middle of a parking lot on a concrete island, just standing there, a token tree.

I think about the trees. How, wow, there are all these trees in the middle of the city, they’re everywhere. Not like a forest but still present.

The entrance to the park is right around the corner from Press, one of my spots along Broadway. The concrete path winds around and down to the river, crosses it on a concrete bridge and climbs up again and heads over to The Tree.

The Tree is an oak that has prospered and spread out its crown for all to see. You can spot it from a ways away, it pulls you towards itself.

Like it holds a secret and you’re destined to know it.

There is an opening, a portal and you enter. The space inside is like a cathedral, a tree cathedral. You can sit on the thick low flying arms and center yourself. It’s circular.

The trunk is slanted as it comes out of the ground, everything is tilted in there as if the north wind had worked on it for ages and it braced itself against the earth to keep from tipping over. It feels like a sacred space but also welcoming.

A mom and her kid enter from the other side. They’re having a barbecue nearby, she tells me. “You found the secret place that nobody knows about except for the Indians” I told her. She accepted the joke and laughed. I laughed. Her daughter sat down on a branch as if she was at the playground, relaxed and happy.

This big oak lives outside Philo’s, on top of the hill overlooking San Pedro Springs. It’s a giant king of a tree.

It’s massive. It’s branches reach out 40 feet from the trunk and almost touch the ground, some are supported by specially made steel supports.

There is a sandbox underneath it and picnic tables for the peasants and their kids. I mean patrons. It must be 200 years old.

There is no climbing and no smoking, as if the tree needed to be protected. It has been watching out from up on top of this hill for 200 years, offering protection to whoever needs it.

Branches support smaller branches which support twigs which support leaves. The whole point of this massive living wood plant, weighing probably thousands or atleast hundreds of tons is to gather sunlight. It streams down abundantly from the sky. This tree harvests it, the whole massive structure of it, the whole purpose is to hold one leaf up to the light. And then do it a million times.

Beautiful isn’t it? Green and alive with bio-chemistry, making tree food out of sunlight. And a couple other things.

This tree stands like a totem in the garden in front of the Sunset Ridge Church of Christ on Brees, right next to the Love One Another coffee trailer.

There’s are alot of people in there. Creatures. Like they’ve been in there for a long time looking out, watching, each from their own unique perspective. It even has a red ribbon. Probably for bravery.

The hill it stands on used to be a hospital before it was a church and before that a Comanche lookout to look out on the valley of San Antonio and see if there were any buffalos around. Well, ok, I just made that last part up but it’s possible. There is so much we don’t know. The only history we know is what got written down.

Here’s the pecan tree in my backyard. It’s half dead. The drought got it. I didn’t know.

This tree is in my book as the centerpiece of Han’s backyard campout place. Han is the protagonist. He lives under the tree and wakes up to its branches sailing above his head. He doesn’t know that the tree is rooted in ancient myth and it’s branches are connected to the infinite sky. It channels the dream that he keeps having, the dream that drives the whole narrative, but he never makes the connection. He has to find out the hard way. Now the top half, all the highest branches of my enchanted pecan tree, have turned cold brown dead.

I have seen this tree drop thousands of pecans in season. The ground was covered with pecans. It was a mast year - meaning the tree dropped so many of its sweet nut seeds that the squirrels and the deer and whoever else could not possibly eat them all. All the pecan trees in a given area will mast together. No one knows how they do it.

Anyways, it masted several years ago and then it never happened again. It may already have been suffering from drought.

I love my pecan tree. There used to be a rope hanging from it and a saddle sort of thing made out of netting. Kids would ride on that swing and scream when they sailed up over the fire at the apogee. The fire was down in the fire pit, of course, but to the kids it was imminent and scary.

I used to swing in a hammock that was connected between the tree and the shed and lie there and read books and dream. Nowadays I hang my clothes on a rope that’s tied to the tree and to the willow standing over by the pool with the ligustrum. Oh, there’s another tree. You should see it when it’s masting - it’s like a flurry of snowflakes coming off that willow tree, floating slowly over the pond on the breeze of the gentle north wind.

This tree is in my front yard. I planted it there about 20 years ago, best I can remember. I brought it home from Home Depot in a pot because I wanted a tree in my front yard and because the branches were all twisted and swirling around in odd angles. Somehow I thought that was cool.

It has its own tiny grotto. You can sit in there and watch people passing by on the road, walking their dog, moms and dads taking the baby out in the stroller, motorists and bicycle riders. Even the kid on the electric scooter can’t see me in here.

---

The rohn report is ad free and pay wall free. It’s free for everyone including the comments and the archive which contains every post from the last 4 1/2 years along with a nifty search feature. It’s available as a podcast or text version.

Please consider supporting my project, if you enjoy it, by becoming a paid subscriber! I know, that’s not free anymore, but your support would mean alot. Upgrade Or . . .