Chapter Nine: The Tree of Life

CHAPTER NINE: The Tree of Life

Winter came fast and furious that year. One morning we woke up to see about a foot and a half of new snow covering the furniture we had stored outside. It’s only early November I cried. But alas, as my luck would have it, I wasn’t prepared. It was a beautiful and a terrible sight for us. The beauty was overruled by the panic of being snowed in up there. The trail was just impassable by now. Luckily we did have a snowmobile so were not really desperate in that sense of the word but we really needed to get our car down so we could go into Bancroft for groceries. This snowfall soon melted enough to get the suburban down the hill. This time the two vehicles would stay below until the next April. A snowmobile and a three-wheeler, as well as a four wheel ATV my brother in-law loaned us, became essentials for mountain living. We had a solar panel for charging the eight golf cart batteries that provided power.

The wood we purchased in October now lay at the bottom of the hill in front of the van. It was completely covered with snow and we had to dig down to find it. Didn’t I just have all the good fortune, I thought grumbling to myself. The snowmobile worked hard to pull a sleigh full of wood up the hill. Somehow we managed to be happy. We bought a couple of dogs to be company for Tundra. She was our part wolf and Husky mix. She looked just like a wolf.

Somehow we felt secure with the dogs there and we built some nice doghouses for them and lined the bottoms with straw. They were comfortable but on a bitter cold night you might see all the dogs sleeping on our bed or the couch or in front of the stove for a while. To be honest they were mostly on our bed and we were squashed within an inch of our lives. Our dogs were called Tundra, Spirit, Joey, Angel, Freddie and Buddy and in that order. Somehow we became dog magnets. The whole neighborhood had dogs I sometimes called the area “Dog patch”. It was early December and the little money we had was now gone.

There was no more big spender. I was fighting pride because to go onto welfare was below me. I was just not able to work anymore, as my health was just not good enough. I put it off too long. I had to swallow this pride and go into the welfare office. Margie and I were called in. We had been sitting in the waiting room. The big sign said “ANY DISTURBANCE FROM ANYONE FOR ANY REASON THE POLICE WILL BE CALLED AND YOU WILL BE CHARGED”. This made me wonder why? Were we a threat to them?

Next we were called in by the lady and Margie and I entered the office of the welfare worker. The following hour was the most humiliating hour we have ever spent. We were treated like we were useless vagrants. I felt so guilty that I was about in tears and Margie felt the same. “What was your previous employment?” Margie told her that she had been

secretary to the Director of Planning and Community and Social Services. She put my wife down as “clerk”. “And you?” she asked. I have been self employed but had lost my business and my home to the bank. “What are your assets?” “What kind of a car do you have?”

She was barking these questions at us like we were in the army or something quite below her at any rate. I wanted to say that I have a Rolls Royce and a Mercedes but I told her that I had the van and the suburban. She said there would be a check coming in the mail in two days and we were to bring receipts for the firewood and the taxes. She said to come back a week from today with these items and further discussion for our eligibility would resume. We left and she yelled from her office “NEXT”.

We drove home to our cabin. The gas gauge was at quarter full. We stayed at the cabin for the next two days and I went down to the mailbox to get our check. The box was empty. We drove to a small village to the west to use a pay phone. I called the social worker and she assured me that the money was in the mail. She put me on hold while she checked with the post office. It was so cold there in the outdoor public telephone booth. Then I heard her say to go and check the box again because the mail lady said she put it in our mailbox that morning. Again the box was empty; there was no check in it. Back to the phone booth again but this time the voice said that the check was there at the welfare office and I can pick it up any time. The gas gauge was at less than one eighth full.

Was there enough fuel to get to Bancroft? There was some gas in the generator. About a gallon I thought, so we drove up the hill and put that little extra fuel in the suburban and into town we went. The check was there and never entered the post system at all. I gratefully accepted the envelope from the worker. Got back into the car and opened the envelope. Three hundred and sixty four dollars was written on it and our only money to live on for the next month. We opened up a bank account in Bancroft and filled the suburban with gas and the empty gas can also. We did our grocery shopping and got some dog food. And there was about forty dollars left for the next thirty days.

It was skimpy living but we did it. We made some wonderful meals with potatoes and cabbage and some onions with seasoning. They really were great. The food always tasted better when we were hungry. The dogs got the cheapest food we could find. In the morning with five hungry dogs around our heels, their feeding was first. Some soup powder with flour and a little salt and pepper made nice gravy to cover their dog food, as it was so cold we thought it would warm them up a little. It smelled so good in the morning, I was temped to try it myself. It was an art Margie and I developed, the knack of putting down five dishes of dog food simultaneously. We didn’t dare get one dish down first, as it would be a scramble to the dish with all the dogs. Margie took two dishes and I would take the three and on the count of three down all the dishes went. Each dog had a different dish and they knew which one was theirs. The food was gulped in a minute or so and each dog

would go to another dish and lick what the dog before had missed. Always the dishes were licked clean. It was play time for about half an hour and we kept their water inside if it was very cold and outside when it was warm enough to stay without freezing. One at a time we took them to their houses and they remained close to each other all day. Any strange noise would result in a chorus of barking that would get us to the window. There was no sneaking up to our cabin, by cracky.

The snow glistened in the moonlight. The outdoors was like daytime at two am. The new fallen snow decorated the landscape in such a fashion it could be only the work of Angels. Margie would get up in the middle of the night and get her snow boots on at which time the whimpering started. The dogs knew it was walk time. Sometimes I would go out with her and walk for a short distance before my angina started. Oh, how I wished to be able to walk with her and the dogs, but I was sick, and sicker than I realized. The trail was about a ten-minute walk to the edge of the hill. It was a ritual. The dogs were running free but they stayed with Margie and they came when she called them. Most of the time they would be back in a half hour or so and if it was very cold they came inside with us.

Our children worried about us and usually on the weekend some of them would come for a visit. It was quite a chore for them to come because for some of them it was a three-hour drive. Then in the winter the walk up the hill was very hard. Usually one would walk up first then we would go down with the snowmobile and the sleigh to help with their belongings. The summer was a little easier because sometimes they could drive up with their cars if the road was dry. The outside world was connected by a CB radio for emergency. A neighbor also would come up to see if everything was all right if the car hadn’t moved for a few days. The phone calls were directed to a neighbor and they would let us know if there were any calls. With both Margie and I not being in the best of health it meant there were doctor’s appointments to keep and without a telephone it was sure difficult.

In the mail one morning there was a letter for us. It said to report to the welfare office on the following Wednesday for a review. We went to the office that morning and we were told that our worker wanted to come and see where we were living, just for the record she said. I told her that if she was to come to the cabin that I would have to know the exact time and would meet her at the road and take her up on the snowmobile.

She was pregnant and getting close to term and a snowmobile trip up the hill was just out of the question. So no inspection ever came our way. No social worker wanted to walk up a trail that was mostly uphill.

We learned a lot about firewood that first winter. Wet or green wood is not good for burning. Many times when the days were nice we would take the chain saw and try to find some dead wood from fallen trees and branches. It was nice to have a few pieces of dry firewood on hand. With the green wood it meant cleaning the chimney often. Sometimes it was done every two weeks. This was important because a chimney fire was just out of the question. We had to have some safety for our own well being and a clean chimney was essential.

My, but how our priorities had changed. Dry firewood and a couple of good flashlights, matches, kerosene and candles became important. The car had some blankets and some candles, just in case. Our power supply was able to give us a small TV with two channels and the lights were used with caution. Sometimes we would say; well what will it be tonight, TV or lights. At times like this we would laugh because if we didn’t we would just have to cry. A solar panel charged the batteries each day but about once a week we ran the generator to top up the batteries and to do a washing or vacuuming. Water for the wringer washer was from the rooftop and stored in forty-five gallon drums. Washday was a lot of work but it got our clothing clean and the bedding also needed cleaning with the dogs and their constantly shedding hair. To run the washing machine we had to run the generator. Cold water washing was what the clothes got but this was as good as we could expect. We had a clothesline out to a tree about thirty feet long and

were in business. No more coin laundry because it was too expensive. Living on the amount that the welfare office gave us was just about impossible, but we existed and made the best of what we had. When I say we existed that is exactly what we did. We existed.

Somehow when faced with our conditions that we had to endure we were able to push most negative thinking into the background. It was so strange and, really, quite adventurous for us. We never ever, ever had to scrimp such as this before. I seemed, at last, to be able to face reality. I was not a winner but a loser. We had both tried and worked so hard all our lives for what. This? This was poverty on a small scale but now I was able to see so much more. I now was one of the welfare bums that used to be everyday conversation at many tables. It gave me first hand experience. I knew about welfare and the false image that was presented to a society who have it all. During the summer we cut our own wood which was an all summer long project. We needed about twelve cord of wood for a winters heating. And we tried to get ahead with it by cutting a little more each year. This way there would be wood dried for a couple of years, which meant less wood and a cleaner chimney. This was very hard on my wife and she was very thin and had to do most of it, as my heart would not let me do very much. She never complained until the last six months or so. She would ask me about moving from here as she was finding it so hard but I always told her she would have to go alone. To this day I don’t know why. Was I afraid to admit that again, I failed at something I tried so hard to do? I didn’t

realize that she was going deeper and deeper into depression until she finally had to go to a doctor and he wanted to put her in the Belleview Hospital immediately. She said she couldn’t go because her husband could not be left alone up there. He managed to get her quickly in to see a professional doctor for her depression. She got the help she so desperately needed. But as for me, I didn’t notice how bad she had gotten. I didn’t realize until we had gotten away from there when I had my heart operation.

The Acorn, Dad and I

Quite a few years ago, when I was growing up my dad said “Wayne, I want you to build me a table” I replied yes dad I think I can do that.

What kind do you want, I asked? He then smiled and reached into his pocket and pulled out an acorn. It was an acorn from a white oak tree. Dad said, go and plant it I’m in no hurry for this table. Come on dad, I said it will take a hundred years to grow a tree big enough. Then we both had a good chuckle. Many years later when I was in the hospital, because of a heart attack,

I remembered that story. I was lying in bed this night because sometimes it is difficult to sleep when in a hospital bed. Then I noticed a white oak tree in the hospital grounds. It was quite large and about a hundred years old, I thought. It was in April and it was misty that night. The tree was lit up from some of the outside hospital lights.

As I looked for a long time it seemed that the very limbs, with all the small branches, were connected like a placenta into the night sky. It looked like it was for some reason clinging to the misty night sky. It was beautiful even without leaves. I just knew that it was alive. I saw energy going back and forth from sky to tree and from tree to sky. Now at this time I wasn’t sure just how alive I was as I was on much medication for this heart condition. For three nights I spent a lot of time looking and wondering about this. My mind said, “I am in a similar condition.” I am also trying to reach up to the only God that I could understand at that time.

The tree was part of the whole scheme. The Creator loved the tree and the tree was like a child that was reaching out to its mom or dad and so was I. It was comforting. For the first time in my life I really felt that I too was part of this giant thought of our Creator. From that time until this present day I knew that I am a part of the whole creation. At last some understanding came to me that I had asked for, for so many times. It was beautiful, a prayer answered. Well, I was part of this creation but not on my terms anymore. I was a very sick man

One of my pet sayings to my wife went something like this “As long as I have my health I can manage any situation that comes to us”.

Well, not anymore. I had no more strength to give. We got through the

The following spring, being dependent on a wood stove, caused us to start getting the wood supply done. We cut what we could of some of the dead trees. This was not enough though. There was, west of the cabin, a large oak tree. It had quite a few cord of wood in it. It was huge. The trunk was about four feet at the base and about sixty feet tall. A beautiful tree and I hesitated to cut it down, but when I looked at it closer, I found that it was starting to show signs of rotting. Now I was justified in cutting it down, because it was going to die anyway. It was too huge for us to cut down by ourselves so a couple of neighbors helped us. We had an old wood splitter my dad left me when he died. The cutting and splitting took us quite a while, a few months.

Everything was hard for me because of my heart condition. Margie did most of the work but I was able to run the splitter. We rolled a large round to the splitter early one morning and began splitting. We just split one in two and we were surprised to find it just full of black ants. It seemed like there were millions of them. We both watched and decided to wait for another day so these little ants could find another home. As we were looking at these little beings something strange happened. We noticed that these ants were not running away. They were all helping to get the eggs or larva moved to safety. Now these ants were all very well-organized as if they had some kind of a plan. There were several lines of them and they were going one after the other but the bigger

ones were carrying all the eggs. It was as if there were evacuation routes for these ants. They were so organized it was just like a community trying out an evacuation plan. We both felt so bad, just like we were the big giants destroying a village of little beings.

Over the next few days the thoughts of the acorn came to me. This was all part of a community, ants and all. I pondered many things that summer. I wondered if that acorn that my dad gave me years ago ever grew up. Why does the tree grow? The roots seem to grow down into the soil and find the necessary nourishment for growing a tree. Yes, this is part of the creation process. The roots know where to go because the minerals are there and calling the roots. They are saying, “Come here, there is iron here and soda and a lot of water over here”. Some are getting the nitrogen and the carbon. The roots get what they are told to get and they get it at the place where they are called. It is carried to the trunk, the limbs, the branches, and the leaves. It is taken there via tunnels and ductwork that only a scientist could explain.

The whole tree is just like a community. The leaves are like little factories that are green and when they shut down for the cold weather they turn gold. They then fall on the ground only to find themselves being transformed again to go back up the tree, defying all the so-called laws of gravity. This tree that started from an acorn, from another tree is part of a major plan. There were squirrels that housed themselves on that tree. They played and grew up on that same tree that now provides

the heat in my cabin on a cold winter day. It provided the food for the squirrels and the field mice that lived here. It provided the branch to hang the tire that my grandchildren swung on. It provided us with shade for those few, but oh so hot summer days.

The tree was part of the community that I was part of. It is gone now and so are the ants that used it for a few years. Not as many squirrels this year. They are all gone. Or are they really gone or have they just become a part of this community that we just can’t quite see yet. Well, this little story is never ending. The more I think of it, the more that I could add to it. Thanks for the acorn dad.