The Tree You Can’t Forget

Listeners and our staff reflect on the trees that made a lasting impression

Our latest show — in which we explore the hidden depths of trees—made all of us wonder a bit about the trees that had played a starring role in some story of our lives. Listeners felt the same:

The interviews in this show make a case for trees as protagonists in the stories we tell, rather than as part of the setting. Sometimes they populate fictional worlds, like that of Richard Powers’ “The Overstory.” Sometimes those stories are nonfiction — where trees bear witness to history. That history draws people to trees like General Sherman or, as producer Shannon Henry Kleiber recommends, the Angel Oak in John’s Island, South Carolina.

Shannon Henry Kleiber, producer: There is no admission price, no gate, no fancy sign, and one could easily drive right by the short side road, missing the experience of one of the greatest trees in the world. You might also be looking up and around on the drive there, mesmerized by the canopy of live oaks, with Spanish moss hanging off of the branches waving in the wind.

I have been visiting this tree, which is near Charleston, almost every year for about 17 years. The Angel Oak is 66 feet tall, and while no one really knows how old it is, the guess is somewhere between 500 and 1,500 years. Some say the Angel Oak is haunted by former slaves, and there is a mystical, spiritual feeling surrounding the tree. I am struck when visiting the tree that it knows so much more than I do, and in a world of fleeting experiences, represents something that truly lasts.

Not every impactful tree has awe-inspiring stature in the eyes of history though. Ordinary maples, willows, oaks and play unappreciated bit parts in the small memories that weave together daily.

I grew up in a house surrounded by fully-grown maple trees, with a huge ancient weeping willow that covered the entire backyard in shade. I loved that tree. I made several ill-advised attempts to climb it (word to the wise: twine will not support the weight of a 10-year-old), read ghost stories while propped up against its massive trunk, and daydreamed while spotting clouds between its wispy boughs.

The unfortunate reality is that the tree made life a living hell for my father, who was the one stuck raking up the tree’s leavings, mowing around its bumpy root structure and trimming massive branches before they fell and clocked one of his kids on the head.

As a teen, I mourned moving to a subdivision with young saplings instead of mighty ancient trees — and when I became a homeowner myself, I opted to find a house in the shade of giant trees of my own. Now I’m the one cleaning sticky tree droppings off my car, picking up dead branches, and fretting about the whole thing coming crashing down on to our 10-year-old roof.

It’s not ironic, it’s just beautifully circular history.

The rest of the To The Best Of Our Knowledge team had similar tales of trees that played important background roles in their lives:

Anne Strainchamps, host: The first house Steve and I owned had a huge silver maple in the backyard. Huge is an understatement. The trunk was wider than I am tall. We were told it was a “witness tree” — one of the trees the original surveyors used to lay out the neighborhood. In the years we lived there, it became our own personal witness tree.

We celebrated our marriage under that tree; Steve’s 90-year old grandparents toasted us under it while his nine and eleven year old niece and nephew played hide-and-seek behind it. Later, when our two children were born, we spread blankets under it and watched our newborns wave their arms and kick their tiny legs in early fall sunshine.

But silver maples are notorious for dropping limbs. One winter, one demolished our neighbor’s garage. Another narrowly missed our roof. We could never bring ourselves to take the tree down, but when new owners moved in, it’s the first thing they did. It lives on in our memories, though, as the mysterious presence that watched over the early years of our family.

Steve Paulson, executive producer: Every summer, my family used to drive to Connecticut to see my grandparents, who lived out in the country. My brother and I would spend hours roaming through the woods and meadows, and we’d hunt for every big tree we could climb. Our favorite was a huge oak tree in back of the garden. At least it looked huge to a boy who wasn’t even ten. Some of the branches had died, which meant there weren’t many leaves that got in our way. Climbing that tree was one of my earliest feelings of mastery. I could shimmy up different parts of the trunk and dangle from branches high up. One time my hands slipped, but I caught myself on a lower branch as I started to fall. Every year when we arrived, I’d head straight out to the garden and look for that tree. Then one year, the tree was no longer there. The rot had taken its toll. And though I still loved this landscape, it was never quite the same again.

Haleema Shah, producer/interviewer: I haven’t spoken to one of my cousins in years, but when we were kids, we were close. It didn’t matter that he was two years older, because we celebrated our birthdays in the same week. Many summers were spent at my childhood home, particularly in the backyard — but where we really wanted to be was the neighbor’s backyard. We had a swing set, but they had a weeping willow.

Its branches looked like long, lazy arms that swayed with the breeze instead of propping themselves up. On lucky days, the branches would be ropes we’d try hanging from — but one day the neighbor saw us doing it. She opened her kitchen window and shouted “PLEASE DON’T SWING FROM THE BRANCHES,” twice in a voice that sounded like a monotone, pre-recorded alarm. She must have gotten used to yelling at strange kids who used her tree to pretend they were Tarzan. We eventually ran away, but we giggled as we did it.

I was a serious kid, I always have been, but my cousin brought out a more playful side of me. I don’t know if we’ll ever be close again — we’ve drifted so far apart that it’s hard to imagine connecting in the same way, but I don’t think we have to replicate our old bond. I just enjoy remembering it for what it was.

What trees have popped up as characters in your life? We’d love to hear more stories like these that “The Secret Language of Trees” might have inspired.