Keep it Simple: Enjoying a long ago gift from my neighbor Tom
Last week I was savoring a morning cup of coffee in the shade of the flowering crabapple near the backyard patio. The position of my chair gave me a seldom-noticed view across the big flower garden; especially its two large oak trees flanking the west side of the bed.
Forty years ago, I was working in the vegetable garden when my neighbor Tom, a dairy farmer, stopped by with two small bundles of tree seedlings. He had been helping at our annual county soil conservation district tree sale. I was quite familiar with the sale; having purchased pine and spruce seedlings from them in the past. Our house in the country on 14 acres had a sum total of three trees when we bought it in the mid-70s and I was determined to increase that number in a very big way. The fact I was and am still a tree and shrub nerd only added to my desire to create a woodland paradise where only a few years earlier acres of potatoes and field corn had been grown.
I believe Tom knew or sensed my obsession with trees and so stopped by after that year’s sale and offered me a few of the leftovers which didn’t get sold. I bit; gladly accepting the small gift. I don’t remember what was in one of the bundles but the other package contained ten oak seedlings, each about a foot tall. Little did I realize two of those miniature trees would one day here in the present, reach a height of over 30 feet and provide a shady patch in the big flower garden for shade-loving hostas.
I thanked Tom for the gift and planted the trees in a short row next to the then vegetable garden, making a small nursery of sorts where they could grow and thrive until big enough for transplanting. Several trees were eventually replanted in the still mostly bare field of former potatoes and corn while the two which now grace the flower garden stayed put for the next 40 years, growing in size until the day last week when I “rediscovered” their majesty from a different point of view and recalled the wonderful gift my neighbor had bestowed upon this once barren looking small plot of land I have called home for a majority of my life.
Tom and his black-and-white dairy cows, which my wife and I used to take our young children to “visit” years ago, have now long since departed from this sweet rural place and all I am left with is those fond memories of a distant past and the pleasure they once brought. The two oak trees bordering the garden are a fine testament to those long-gone days when I envisioned a woodland paradise in which to enjoy my years here. Long after I have exited stage right the oak trees will remain although there won’t be anyone to remember the connection between the time they were just tiny seedlings and the magnificent trees they have now become.
I have always enjoyed receiving small gifts: A Ziploc bag of Chex mix from a golf partner to munch on between bad shots. Homemade Thanksgiving and Christmas cards from my grandchildren. A stranger buying my wife and me a beer accompanied with a good conversation at a brewery in Savanna still brings a smile to my face. Simple things for a relatively simple guy.
A simple gift of oak tree seedlings fills me with happiness 40 years later as I sip my coffee and think this world could use more of the simple exchange of simple gifts to one other.
— Michael Jones is a columnist and contributor for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be reached at mfomike2@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: Enjoying a long ago gift from my neighbor Tom
