"The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is now." --- Old Chinese proverb
It was a Hallelujah sort of day. No sooner had we landed in St. Louis than we heard the news - the remaining monster pine, the partner in crime to the one that did a number on us in Ida, was coming down. No small feat, you see. Meetings were had. Letters were written. Certified mail was sent. Where we live, one can't cut a tree - even a snag - willy nilly. But I must have been convincing, lodging our complaint with the adjacent property owner. For the next thing we heard two months later (permits take time), from the St. Louis Lambert International Airport, was Timberrrrrr.
As jubilant as we were in early November about the toppling of the tree, we've now turned our focus to planting one. The origin of Arbor Day, back in early 1872, is owed to a journalist's appreciation for trees. It was, in fact, a newspaper editor and nature lover, J. Sterling Morton, in Nebraska who on January 4, 1872, at a State Board of Agriculture meeting proposed the idea of Arbor Day, a holiday for tree planting. Pioneers were pining for the trees which they had cut, out of necessity, to build their homes and for fuel, to stay warm. Trees were also needed in the winter for windbreaks around homes and settlements. And in the summer months, they provided much needed shade.
Digressing, I am reminded of Blake Shelton's recording of the tune (written by Ben Hayslip and Rhett Akins) "Honey Bee." It has always reminded me of my mother, a Washington Parish native, and my father, who hailed from Walthall County - she was his Louisiana, and he was her Mississippi. But Blake Shelton's lyrics continued, "You'll be my sunny day I'll be your shade tree." A perfect promise. Back to the 1870s, people who were desperate for shade in the summer time paid close attention to Mr. Morton. He advocated for the planting of trees, and they heeded his advice.
For that first Arbor Day - April 10, 1872 - prizes were handed out to those, individuals and counties, who planted the most trees that day. The awards must have been coveted because over one million trees were planted on that inaugural Arbor Day in the Cornhusker State. But it was not officially proclaimed by the Governor of Nebraska until March of 1874. Arbor Day was a legal holiday in 1885 in Nebraska and was observed on April 22, Mr. Morton's birthday.
Other states followed suit, passing legislation for observance of Arbor Day, in the 1870s. In 1882, Arbor Day was observed in schools all across America.
My school, just shy of a century later, was in that number. At five years of age, I started school at Bowling Green, as a first grader in the fall of 1970. My classroom was housed in a portable building, to put it generously, behind the old bowling alley at the corner of Bene Street and 11th Avenue, known as Railroad Avenue to old timers. By the following fall, the beginning of my second grade year, the school had relocated to its present-day location near the end of Varnado Street, on what was Davenport property.
Yet, there wasn't a tree to be found on the playground behind the elementary school building. Hot doesn't begin to describe recess. So, my second grade class planted an oak tree. Making the acquaintance of Spanish teacher Pam Penny back in 2016, I was honored to visit her Bowling Green classroom for a superb presentation by her students on the mobilization of the 1st Infantry Regiment in 1916 to engage Villa. It was then that she and I made the connection - of the grand, old tree. She remarked that her Aunt Vivian Richardson's class had planted the large live oak on the playground many moons ago. That I knew because I took part in the planting. Pam - the daughter of Harry and Maxine Jones Armstrong, sister of Vivian Jones Richardson - had not, before that, known who was in the class that planted it, some fifty years ago.
A magnificent tree, with a generous canopy of limbs, it was our legacy as second graders (1971-1972). There were just seventeen of us, back then: Paul Bienvenu, Marianna Burris, Theresa Byrd, Caryn Crain, Cecily Ellzey (columnist), John Mark Fussell, Steve Galloway, Rachel Holmes, Angela Johnson, Robert Jerry Johnson, Kenneth Kinlaw, Marilyn McMillan, Mark Melancon, Ronnie Schilling, Vanda Simmons, Darleen Warren, and Price Yates. With Rachel and Marianna graduating a year early, thirteen of our original second grade class remained together at graduation, forty years ago, in 1982.
I don't recall us discussing the tree in later years, but we had a reunion photograph taken under it in 2002. Marking the years, it gave the generations that came after us the shade we were seeking, back in the early 1970s. I wonder if Mrs. Odell (Vivian) Richardson, who lived to 102, or any of my classmates realized what a legacy we were leaving. I didn't. As it turned out, it was one beyond measure.
Though Arbor Day is recognized nationally on the last Friday in April, Louisiana celebrates it on the third Friday of January, with winter our best planting time. If you are so inclined, join in and plant a tree.
Note: Source of the historical information on Arbor Day is www.arborday.org and the Arbor Day Foundation.
