If it looks familiar it's because I snatched it from here and just edited the shit out of it
:D
WIN
Poppa uses cedar almost as his totem, tucking pieces into Christmas cards and caskets alike, so I brought some saplings up north, figuring that he would like them. My brother-in-law took one, which left five that my husband helped Poppa plant down in what he calls the cedar swamp.
A month later, as we were sitting around the dinner table, the scents of Mom’s cooking still flavoring the air, I asked Poppa how the trees were doing. He quickly pushed himself away from the table and said, “Well, let’s check.” We stood on the back steps for a minute while his blind old springer spaniel made her way over to us, gamboling at his feet as if to say “Are we going now? Can we go now? Are you ready now?” As we passed through the Indian gap, Poppa told me about the foot path that runs over his hill to town. The local tribe would use it, and the gap in the fence, big enough for a man but too small for a horse, was there for them. He didn’t reckon that he had seen any Indians walk through his land for at least 60 years, but some things you still honored because that was the way it was done. He told me that what we were walking used to be Highway 8, and then was abandoned when they put the paved road in at the bottom of the hill. He remembered the sound of the teams and old trucks as they jangled and creaked their way up the mighty incline. He would hear the occasional curse of the drivers of the logging drays, encouraging their teams to pull harder. The drivers would sometimes jump off the wagons, as if their slight weight was somehow stopping the massive horses from cresting the hill with the towering load of logs.
As we walked through the hushed dappled sunlight down the old trail, he told me stories of the different trees along the path, pointing out the basswoods that grew in clumps like giant hands springing out of the earth, instead of solitary trees. He and his brother had cut the trees closest to the road when they were just boys, to sell for box wood. It was a small way they could contribute to the family economy during the Great Depression. The majestic soldiers that now lined our path were what had grown out of the stumps. He showed me the earthen mound that was actually an old stump. He and his father had pulled it out with their own team of heavy draft horses, when he was home from college one summer. He pointed out dead-falls of oak and ash that he would gather to fire the maple syrup boiler in the coming spring. He showed me the American Elm trees that were still standing tall and strong despite the disease that had swept the country.
We entered the swamp from the east and he didn't even hesitate as he walked up to the northern-most tree. He examined the branches and needles, telling me “When you plant things here there are plenty of rocks you had to move but sometimes you just have to work around them.” He hoped he had picked the right spot for the trees, but only time would tell if that was true or not. He gently examined each, running his rough hands tenderly among the small branches, looking for any signs that he had chosen well. Before we reached the third tree, I realized that he had planted them in a circle. At the final tree he stopped to catch his breath and told me that he passed a fragrant sprig of cedar along as a sort of "good journey" wish. With a small smile on his face he mused, “Maybe it was a bit pagan, but that’s okay.” He had learned from an old Indian that he used to work with that there was more than one way to worship. He hoped that perhaps his kids had learned that lesson as well.
It was only about a twenty minute walk but it was amazing to listen to his stories of this land where he grew up, and upon which he was now growing old. We walked back in comfortable silence.
