Trees Along the Banks

*This post is dedicated with love to my brother Mark. I hope it brings a smile.

*******

Trees are good.
In fact, I can honestly say that I've never met a tree I didn't like.
Well, to be completely honest, maybe I didn't care for one or two that were causing trouble.

Concerning good trees.
Now that I'm old, I find myself gazing back into the past now and then and being surprised to find trees there. It's a bit odd.
One lazy afternoon I was surprised to see quite a few growing along the shady banks of my memory.
There they stood, beautiful and growing, filled with green and gold, sunlight and blue sky. And after all those passing years, they still "gladdened the heart and pleased the eye" as the scriptures say.
I wish them all well.

One tree I remember was actually a grove.

Larry and I had traveled from Arizona to California for our notorious family event, "Dueling Dinners." "Dinners" is now a family war of culinary braggarts started decades ago by a rude comment made by my brother Matt. This after I had graciously fed him some of my homemade lasagna.
I'll never forget it.
"Kath," he said when he should have kept quiet, "I can make better lasagna than this." Well, that was the first shot in a battle that's gone on for generations now.

Brother Mark was hosting the Duel that year. He always goes above and beyond in preparation for this event so everyone was super excited.

He'd made reservations at a lovely little lakeside campground for all the families coming with their various camping accomodations.
I remember beautiful large trees with multiple trunks growing along the lake shore and throughout the campsites. As the family arrived, tents began to pop-up among them.
Pup tents, room-sized tents, lean to's, temporary storerooms, shade providers, rain protectors, and canvas dressing rooms began to appear everywhere. It was quite a sight.
Pick-up trucks with sleeping bags in the back pulled in next to all the construction.
Then the show-off RV's packed with their cheating kitchens showed up. Hidden inside were their electric whisks and microwave ovens.
The huge beasts finally managed to park after numerous forward and reverse, forward, curse, reverse; forward, curse, reverse maneuvers.
Divine justice, all the trouble they had.

Mark hadn't forgotten Larry and I either. There was a comfortable hotel with a king sized bed and a real bathroom just down the road.
We used to love "roughing it," but in our old age we began to love room service.  Remember....to every thing there is a season.

Anyway, as we drove down a small hill into the campground I began to wonder at the trees, trying to figure out what kind they were. I hadn't seen them in Arizona.
Then, as I looked hard among the leafy green, I was startled to see eyes and faces beginning to peek out from the branches. Each tree had a child's face or two growing there along the limbs next to the bird nests!
After closer inspection I realized that those peeping faces belonged to my grandchildren!
How wonderful!
The trees were full of little fruits and they were all mine!


"And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after it's kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind: and God said that it was good."       Gen 1:12 (Moses 2:12)
                                       
******************
       
Another tree that grows along my memory banks is a huge ponderosa pine. It played an important part in our family's first week of life in the mountains after our move from the city.
Our home in the desert was surrounded by gravel lawns and citrus trees. Lemon, orange, grapefruit and Mexican lime trees are wonderful in every season but they don't grow to be very tall. Their branches start close to the ground and mature trees remind me of enormous bushes.
After the move to the little house in the big woods, where we stayed for 12 years, we now lived in one of the largest stands of ponderosa pines in the Southwest.
Ponderosas grow straight up and are enormous! They have rough bark and the first branches on the oldest trees don't appear until many feet up. I've heard them called mountain skyscrapers. Some of the trees that surrounded our cabin must have been over 100 feet tall.

So into the mountain forest we brought our desert city cat, "Blue," named for  his smoky-blue color. He was used to citrus trees which aren't much good for climbing. He must have been thrilled to see those huge pines! So up he went.

By the time he reached the first branches he was already in trouble.
Why is it that cats are so much like some people I know, just plunging along with no thought about where the path they're on may end up.
Anyway, Blue finally stopped to look down. He froze. He was now terrified.
He yowled and meowed loudly and pitifully. For 3 days. And nights.

It was during this little crises that our city slicker family put on a show for the local mountain folk. All kinds of antics were performed in an attempt to rescue that cat.
The performances ended with a heartstopping finale featuring Larry parking the Suburban under the tree, perching a huge ladder on top, and climbing it to try to get Blue down before he was killed himself.
To no avail. Blue was too scared to move.
The nights were the worst. I can still hear that pitiful meowing above the sound of the the wind whistling through the pines. And after each yowl some wild, hungry, predatory animal answered.

Then, miraculously, after several days, Blue appeared on the front porch. This time meowing to get in for food, water, and someone's warm bed.
We never knew how he'd managed to get down.

However, all this turmoil wasn't for naught.
Blue, the cat, had taught an important lesson. It's a caution for all to remember it.
Sometimes we have to do what has to be done even when we're scared, right? And you might as well do it before spending three cold nights up a tree.


"Wherefore if ye believe me, ye will labor while it is called today."
  D&C 64:25

"...O that we had repented before the great and terrible day..."
 3  Nephi 18:24

"If you have to swallow a frog it's best not to stare at him too long first."
  Mark Twain


I'll tell you about some more trees another time.
God bless you with many of your own to remember.