Echoes of the past....

Where does the time go?  It was about 20 years ago that I was part of a group on Prodigy where I would often post essays about what life was like when I was kid.  I look back on that time quite fondly!  I grew up in a large family in a small suburb north of Detroit and have many good memories of those early days of my life.  Here is one of my memories from way back when.

Berkley, 1996:
We moved to our current home when our daughter was 3 years old.  One of things we were going to do at some time in the future was cut down and remove an old maple tree that was putting out roots that were destroying the driveway to the garage.  About a year after moving, I mentioned to my husband about cutting down that tree.  A little voice popped up "you can't cut down Charlotte".  I looked at Mim...."Charlotte??" "Yes, that is Charlotte and you can't cut her down."  I said "you gave that tree a name?"... "She told me"..."Oh, I see"  Jim looked at me and shrugged "we can't cut down Charlotte" and that was that.... 16 years later the driveway is a mess on one side, but Charlotte is still standing proud and tall...the home to various birds every spring.

I can understand that attachment to a tree.  When I was a kid we had Weeping Willows in our yard.  I loved those willow trees..... although I never knew their names, or if I did, I have forgotten them. I lived in a sub-division built in 1949, the year I was born.  When my family moved in, there were no trees, no grass, and every house on the block was exactly the same.  I don't remember it that way, because I was born shortly after Mom and Dad moved there.

Our house on Royal Ave. around 1952

One of the first things they did was plant two small weeping willows in the back yard.  Those trees grew quickly and by the time I was old enough to want to climb trees, they were just the right size. I can still see them there, one bigger than the other, with their long and graceful branches sweeping the lawn.  It was wonderful to sit in the shade of those beautiful trees and read my favorite books, or play with my favorite dolls.  At one point, we discovered you could climb the smaller one and get on top of the garage roof!  Now that was an adventure in itself....it seemed so high...at least a mile and it made you feel so bold to think you would dare the dangerous trek to that lofty perch...overlooking the WHOLE WORLD. It was about that time, my Mother decided the trees were getting too big for the yard... and she was right, but still, I felt a little pang of sorrow when they cut the smaller tree down.  But we still had the bigger one to enjoy, although it was rapidly becoming impossible to climb.

Artwork by The Brothers Hildebrandt

When I was a bit older and read The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time, Old Man Willow, in my mind, looked  just like that old willow in my own backyard!  A few years ago, the big tree had to come down too...it was just overwhelming that little yard.  But my love of trees followed me to adulthood... the stately Oak trees that gave me acorns to fashion into fairy dishes, so long ago; the brilliant Maples with seeds like helicopters to toss in the air and watch as they twirled to the ground; the golden leaves of the Aspens, quaking in the slightest breeze, that became the magical Mallorn trees of  Lothlorien; and the graceful  sweeping elegance of the Weeping Willows that gave me so much joy in those days of  lazy summer afternoons, middle earth, and sitting on top of the world.

My little sister leaning on the old willow tree in our backyard