Readers respond with tree tales

"I've loved trees from whenever I can remember. From listening to my grandmother tell how grandpa planted all the trees around their home, and me trying to comprehend how he did that when they were so large. The love of nature in general led me into eventually teaching HS biology. Just like my college botany prof, I took my classes outdoors in the spring and fall, for them to share my enthusiasm for trees and other flora. Any number of students told me it was the best part of the course. When my wife and I bought a house, the lot was sold by a farmer as part of his field by a road. Needless to say, there wasn't one stick on that property, only grass. I planted acorns when my wife became pregnant and you can't believe how big a tree becomes after fifty years. Each birthday our children have to get their picture taken by "their" tree as our oldest is closely approaching fifty."

"Years ago in reading to the kids at bedtime I couldn't get through Silverstein's 'The Giving Tree' without choking up. ... The Morris Arboretum's Katsura Tree, labeled the staffs' favorite, is best at this time of year, as it gives off a wonderful spicy aroma. 18 years ago, when my dad was dying of prostate cancer, I spent several hours sitting underneath the tree's gigantic canopy and gaining a sense that 'all is well.' I had planted a Katsura in my back yard ... a decade before that somber time, and when I moved from that home a couple of years after Dad's death, I mourned moving away from my young 'giving tree' more than moving away from my neighbors. At least once a year, I sneak to that yard and take a look at 'my tree.' "