12/15/2003

2003-12-15 - 8:52 a.m.

The picture won't escape me; 10:30 pm in a snowing, snow covered Cleveland night-time dream all awash in the orange/yellow glow from the strings of clear light bulbs propped above the trees. East side, Holy Name church and, as my friend put it, a "very diversified" neighborhood.

I was there to pick the tree who gave it's life that my family might enjoy the warmth and presence and smell of it for the holidays. First I checked out a blue spruce; tall and narrow and sharp looking, but dry with needles that fell to the touch. They would have ended up in my trunk on the way back the the west side, yielding a conical tangle of twigs. The blues were a bit pricey too, starting at $65.00. (I paid $70.00 for a fresh one last year) On over to the douglas firs and a tall, stout, bushy looking tree stopped me in my needle covered tracks. She was just over 8' tall and at least 6' in diameter with a fullness which grew fuller each time I looked. "How much for this one?" The apprentice's delay signaled bargaining room. "Um...sixty dollars." I looked the fir over once more. "Will you take fifty?" He said he thought so but he had to check and a couple minutes later we were hauling the tree horizontal to the wrapper. It took three of us to push the evergreen into the opening at the end of the machine and the mesh in the wrapper bound the beast for the ride home.

The 'boss' at the tree lot on East 83rd and Broadway wore brown work overalls and smoked a cigar. He talked about a customer who had been buying a tree from him for the last 35 years. He was friendly, helpful and kind and the depth of the history and the trees this man sold in as many Christmases as I was old still warms my heart and fills me with wonder.

We stood her up yesterday and she looks even better than in the lot. And the magic smell of the spirits of thirty-five years of trees radiates from tip to toe.