It was born who knows how or when. Fifty years ago, one hundred? A seed dropped by a bird or the wind, or left by a squirrel? The details don't matter.
However it began, the sapling pushed unceremoniously through the soil and quickly established pride of place in the land around Hansche Pond in Mount Pleasant, if not the tallest then at least one of the tallest walnut trees in the area.
When the land finally was subdivided, and homes sprouted some 25 years ago it stood proudly in front of its home on Pleasant Lane, providing shade and substance to the property; watching over its family, growing as they grew. But unlike trees -- constant and without wanderlust -- when families grow they move on and new families take their place.
Now the home has been sold, and before the new owners even moved in they made a fateful decision: the tree had to go. Don't judge them too harshly. It was not a majestic tree: its trunk split near the ground into five not-so-straight, not-so-perfectly-vertical arms, pointing helter-skelter upward. Twenty-first Century Joyce Kilmers -- do they even exist? -- would not be writing any poems about this tree; not even a quatrain.
And so, two men with chainsaws arrived Saturday, noisily cutting, trimming, chipping away. By Sunday afternoon, the tree was cut into pieces, stacked mostly neatly. Smaller limbs in a pile over there; big round chunks of trunk, two- and three-feet across, over here. Beautiful grain; strong, solid bark.
A small sign stuck in the ground on Lathrop Avenue proclaims the end of the tree's life story: "Free Wood," it says.
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