The gift of a tree

[Denise Hill Barlow]

This was posted by Grant Lumber, a local company here in Tucson, AZ. I liked it so much I thought I'd share with you. Please enjoy the read.

A TREE

A
tree
is
God's
creation
everywhere
on earth -
including Brooklyn.
It's said man once
lived in trees. When he
climbed down, life never
again was to be quite so
simple...yet only then did the
tree get truly appreciated. For
here was food and fuel and shelter.
Then a weapon, a tool, a wheel - and
transportation. and now it's floors, doors,
veneers, piers, baskets, caskets...rubber for
gaskets. It's a handle for brooms, shovels, rakes
...syrup on pancakes. It's paper and paints...
tars, spars, boxes and boxcars...storage bins and
bowling pins. It's toothpicks and matchsticks...even
plastics..materials for distillation, lamination, insulation
...window for ventilation, and a thousand and one other
we-can't-do-withouts. Yet few people look at a tree in the
same way. To the small boy it's a favorite and strategic
place...where you build a treehouse, spot a woodpecker, cut slingshots
and fishpoles, hang old tires and climb for fun. To the naturalist it's probing
a fasinating world of buds, blossoms, bark, needles, cones and leaves...
spectacles of color...and some 1,035 domestic species. Yet to a baseball player it's
as simple as a stick of second-growth ash, sized and shaped to "feel like a million".
To the artist it's inspiration...alone on a windswept hill, timberline patchwork on a
mountainside, thick and verdant in a valley. To the homeowner it's beauty and
shade and property value...also digging, planting, pruning, edging, feeding and a
lot of other weekend work. To the hobbyist and craftsman it's a new bookcase, picnic
table, paneled den, plywood shelves...a chance to become downright "immortal".
To the timberman it's a bustling big business measured by cords and board feet. But
most of all, a tree remains what it was in the first place...man's ever-lasting friend.
For we'd sure be "stumped"
for a mighty
lot of things
in a world
without a tree!
-author unknown-