Letter to my Son
Sunday, 2 March
 |
| Forest of the Tarheel State |
Good Morning Jack…
As you know the natural order of North Carolina is to be a
carpet of trees. This certainly helps to
explain why the state has historically been a thriving center for furniture
manufacturers – Thomasville, as a ‘for instance’. Like the textile industry in this region,
though, most of the manufacturing has relocated overseas. Of course, the trees are still here. They crop up everywhere in neighborhood yards
without the slightest encouragement.
People constantly pull them from their gardens and mow them down in
their lawns. Part of the cost of living
here is having a local tree service barber the lush growth of your stately
trees.
Of course, with all these trees about the realm comes an
infestation of squirrels. I suppose
infestation is the wrong word because they are not like rats that invade your
home. They are known to nest in people’s
attics but unless you keep a bowl of acorns sitting out they won’t be startling
you if you happen to walk into the kitchen during the middle of the night. They mostly ignore us. They aren’t terribly fond of human ways. They do appreciate gardens, though. One year I planted several large, fat and
healthy sunflower seeds only to have every one of them hunted down and
devoured. They have a keen sense of
smell as they rely on scent to uncover their own buried acorns, even beneath the
winter’s snow.
Imagine a forest without woodpeckers. No, I can’t either. They’re not hard to track down with their red
heads tapping in the trees and their curious looping flight. I guess undulate is a better word for it. The bird can’t fly in a straight and level
fashion like most birds. It’s like the
bottom falls out between wing beats and its flight constantly wants to sag
towards the ground. What’s with
that? Everything has a reason,
right? Is it possible the bird just
thinks flying the dipsy-do is more fun?
You know birds have an amazingly small brain to be able to handle all
the sophisticated acrobatics they do. I
wouldn’t think there’d be room left over to slip in a pleasure center. Imagine a scientific paper being published
that concludes woodpeckers fly the way they do just for the hell of it. They enjoy the giddy feeling it gives them in
their stomach.
Occasionally deer wander through the yard. They are everywhere, as you might
expect. I avoid driving most country
roads at night because the local deer are still in the process of adjusting to
the presence of cars. There’s a healthy
population of black vultures here that feasts upon this fact.
We’ve got raccoon and fox here. A box turtle once wandered by. There’s also a few interesting snakes that
hang out in leaves and snoop around barns.
Owls hoot and hawks make their daily rounds. I could come up with a pretty good list of
wildlife varmints seen around here if I really tried but I think I was talking
about trees and I got off track. I
missed my point.
What I wanted to say is that most people really love trees
and forests. Why not? It’s all so green and lush and vibrant with
life. Yet, there are a few people like
me that find all this wooded growth a bit claustrophobic. Personally, I am a big fan of the
unobstructed horizon. I love seeing
where sky meets land twenty miles further down the road. Sure you can plunk a tree somewhere to break
the monotony. They make for a great
accent piece. But a few trees go a long
way with me. That holds true for most
any form of living thing. Allow me to
contemplate the unique qualities of just one animal, isolated and very much
alone. A lizard enjoying the morning on
a rock will do. Maybe he’s in the midst
of savoring the full-bodied flavor of a juicy cricket while he sunbaths. His head raised and cocked to one side he
gives me his cold-blooded reptilian assessment.
I’m not worth much. Just keep my
distance and we’ll all be cool. That
works for me, too. I count myself among
the critters that probably need more personal space than we have a right to
expect.
Love,
Dad
