Labor Day Weekend I
Bill Long 8/31/07
Exploring Three Venues
I have always considered the last week in August, or the "run-up" to Labor Day to be a sort of "extra" week in the calendar. It seems to take so long to get through August and then you have a long weekend before the crush of Fall begins. This year I engaged three tree-related activities to "draw out" the time.
Several people have asked me about my interest in trees, and why they seem to occupy such a prominent part of my RAM these days. I think I have a two-part answer to that question. On the one hand, trees are the clearest daily witness to me of how I have ignored life or not listened to life over the years. I had lived 55 years, and for most of them I didn't even have the courtesy to learn about the names and habits of the largest physical presences in my life. And, I have realized how I am not alone in this. Often, as I try to find out things about interesting trees, I will stop in to the business on whose property such a tree is located. Invariably no one knows anything about any of the trees.
Secretaries greet me with a kind of terrified bemusement--bemused because they have never been asked a question about trees, and they are supposed to be able to help out on all things, and terror because for a split second they believe that their job and economic future might rest on their ability to answer my question. Trees, then, are silent witnesses to how incurious I have been in life. They slow me down, urge me to notice them, and then give me something in the way of beauty or insight when I slow down to see them.
Learning the names of trees also stimulates and sates my curiosity regarding how we organize knowledge about the world. We have decided to give trees a two word (sometimes three, if it is a cultivar or variety) Latin name, and this Latinate system of naming supposedly connects all of life to each other. In order to understand the world, you need to understand the names that people who have come before you have assigned to things. Once you learn these names (and can connect name with object), you are in a position to grasp all kinds of other knowledge in quite some detail as well as to begin to launch critical reviews of the way that we have decided to organize knowledge. If you spend considerable time learning the "official" and "popular" names of trees, or plants, or fish, or other living things, you will find that this exercise is tantamount to running a marathon each day or to doing 3 hours on the elliptical/cardio machine per day. You will discover that your mind simply hums in high gear whenever you have to relate to people on "mundane" or other tasks.
Thus studying about trees is not only a great discipline for the mind; it is a way to try to notice the world around me. I know that I tend to pay more attention to people once I know their names; now I can't ignore the trees once I have learned their names. But make no mistake about it. The task is really quite hard and long. You can learn a few names of trees, and then you become confused very easily. You tend to wonder if that tree is a Port Orford Cedar or an Incense Cedar or a Western Red Cedar. Or, you wonder if the spruce you see is an Englemann or Norway or Brewer.
Then, once you establish some kind of confidence that you know a few varieties/species, you run into the problem of varieties. For example, street trees in most major American towns are selected for a number of reasons, most of which have to do with their ability to absorb punishment and still look healthy. Thus, maples or hornbeams or zelkovas are popular street trees. But if you begin to study maples, you realize that there are perhaps 40 or so varieties of red maples alone that may grace the streets of a moderate-sized city in America. Thus you have Acer rubrum Red Sunset or Acer rubrum Scanlon, etc. etc. So, you can take this knowledge about as far as you can go, and there is still more. But I, for one, have found that this focused learning on the natural world is paying big dividends in almost every area of my life. I never knew it would work this way...
The Three Tasks
Thus, I have set up a number of "tree-learning" experiences in Oregon over the past few months that I can engage in. I also have done special "tree tours" in CA and look forward to doing one in SC when I am there in September. In the past two days I have engaged in three "tree tasks" to stimulate and broaden myself. Let me quickly explain them here and then turn to how I am faring with each one in the next essay.
On Thursday August 30, I went over to the Bush Pasture Park in Salem. I met the horticulturalist for the City of Salem on duty there, and he (Tom) was kind enough to show me a brochure drawn up in 2005 naming the various species of trees in four "quadrants" of the northwest corner of the park, surrounding the Bush House. I had not seen such a document previously, and I knew that it would be of some help, but a few quick questions to Tom made me (and him) realize that it wasn't really "up to speed" for one who wanted to learn about all the species of trees near the House. For one thing, the "boundaries" between the four quadrants weren't clearly indicated, thus leading to uncertainty regarding which trees were where. Then, as we were standing there, I pointed to a few trees that should have been listed in the quadrant in which we were standing, but they weren't there. Thus, I knew I had to return to the Bush Park later in the day to develp a method to understand the trees.
Then, I decided to call the City Forester's/Arborist's office in the Parks Department of the City of Salem to find out what they had in the way of resources to help understand the trees of Salem. My unusual request was met with affability and support from another Tom (I am sure they weren't the same guy!), and he ended up sending me an excel spread sheet with 2400+ trees planted on City right-of-ways in the last 20 years--identified according to a species code. I can play with the spread sheet and organize the data according to street and number, so that potentially I will have a walking guide to a few thousand trees in Salem.
The dual weaknesses of this list should be apparent. It only lists the trees planted in the last 20 years by the city (and it says nothing about the many thousands more that were already there before the mid 1980s), and it only has about 200 or so species/varieties of trees. Since the City isn't an arboretum, there is no interest in having a "full collection" of trees gracing the streets of this city. Nevertheless, it is helpful to have this list because it will force me to learn all my Norway or Red maples, for example; it will make me learn to love Chanticleer Pear trees...
Finally, I wanted to return to Corvallis, OR, to finish a multi-block tree walk that covers the central parks of that City as well as the four major blocks of Oregon State University. Hundreds of trees and species are identified. I did one of these "tree walks" last week, and I decided to "finish up" today.
Thus, with these tasks on my plate for yesterday and today, I ventured forth into the pleasant mid-80s weather. I got lots of sun and air, and now I write about it. The next two essays describe my days.
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