Driving around this neck of the woods you can really see the signs of new growth: Fields are being plowed, trees are starting to take on the fine green lace of new growth. It's almost distracting as I drive through the countryside. It's almost as if I've never seen this place before. Then again, at my age, that could just be related to memory.
Almost every large field will have at least one tree like the one above. It's a big old oak that still slumbers. This tree and dozens more like it, sit barren in the middle of plowed fields. They're not dead. They're just taking a little longer to get ready. A little more time getting the creaks out. A little more time with hair and make-up.
These hundred year old trees were the shelters for the farm hands. Before large tractors with huge plows and planters, long before mechanized combines that could take down a field in the time between breakfast and lunch, men worked in fields for days. The farmer, his boys, and a few of the neighbors would head out early and stay as long as there was light. These big trees were maintained and cared for as a place to find shade on a hot summer day.
Those days are long gone but many of the area farmers still leave these old trees in place, monuments to an earlier age when the work was more dependent on the back and arms and legs of legions of men and boys. When I drive by I always have to wonder: How many baskets filled with fried chicken and biscuits have been laid out under those branches? How many quarts of water drunk in its shade? How many times have farmers' wives and daughters carried lunch and dinner out to that island? How many hard working backs have leaned against that big trunk in order to rest and cool a bit?
Easy to over look, these big trees are are relics from pre-industrialized farming. They are the living headstones of a generation past. If you ever find yourself driving through the rural farmland, take a look. You won't see them obstructing the operations of the large corporate farms. You'll only find them on the heritage farms. Mostly farms where farmers have pride in their past, a respect for the workers in whose furrows they follow.
I see those trees daily in my neighborhood- just beginning to burst the leaves that will make a canopy across the streets. The houses are darkened by the shade of the enormous oak trees in summer, but the houses are also air-conditioned by the 100 - 200 year old leaves. It's a gift - a mixed blessing of summer. It's cool, but the sun really can't get through the thick leaves . As one drives down the street, a moments respite from the sun is a gift.
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