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Column
By Margie Richards
In celebration of the old oak tree
I have always had an affinity for trees, particularly oak trees. My own yard these days is full of them, and my husband Charles knows if he wants to get me riled, he has only to mention taking down a tree. I love to look at them, to watch their changing patterns through the seasons and the multitude of creatures that call them home.
The live oaks along the coast are beautiful to me, their branches draped with Spanish moss and their limbs forever molded to the constant ocean breezes.
I guess it’s no wonder I love them so since I literally grew up under the spreading branches of an “old oak tree.”
My parents moved back to Madison County in the early 1950s, before I was born and purchased the old Bluestone School building and some acreage around it. As they were clearing the property and remodeling the old school building, they took down some trees, but left a few standing for shade, especially one promising oak sapling. Well, that sapling repaid them a thousand fold, growing towards the sun at a fast pace. By the time I came along that tree had spread its limbs like a canopy over the house and some of my first memories are of playing at the base of its massive trunk.
My Daddy hung an old iron swing from one of its lower limbs and I and all my friends often piled into that old swing. In summertime, I gathered its acorns to make “acorn pies” and other imaginary delicacies that I cooked in my imaginary kitchen under the tree. I lay on my back many a summer day and watched the squirrels play, jumping from limb to limb. My brother once had a pair of hawks he raised, and they use to sit on the limbs of that tree, waiting for him to emerge from the house.
My parents often talked of taking the tree down as it became bigger and bigger over the house, afraid, I’m sure, that it would drop a heavy limb on the roof or be struck by lightning, but it never did, and they could never bring themselves to take it down. I haven’t been by the old house I grew up in lately, but the last I knew the old tree still stood, majestic as ever, though, strangely, not quite as large as in my memory.
In our front yard stood two more far older oak trees. My Daddy, who was born in 1911, use to eat lunch under those trees when he went to school there. I spent many a day playing under their branches as well.
I decided to do a little research on the oak tree, and have found that it grows in 49 of the 50 states. Its wood is used for a variety of purposes all over the world. The oak tree is a deciduous tree (which means it sheds its leaves each season) and a member of the Beech family. Its scientific name is Quercus or Lithocarpus.
Oak trees, it seems, can live 200 or more years, which by comparison, makes my childhood tree not so old at all. The largest oak tree of record, according to one article, was the Wye oak in the community of Wye Mills in Talbot County on Maryland’s eastern shore, which was believed to be more than 400 years old. The Wye Oak reportedly succumbed to a violent thunderstorm which blew the old tree over a few years ago.
A mature oak tree can reportedly draw up to 50 or more gallons of water per day through its root system.
In a good year the oak tree will have many flowers -- up to several thousand. With the right humidity, the right temperature, no late frost in the spring, and sufficient rainfall in the summer, tiny scale-covered acorns (called nubbins at that point) begin to grow. They will mature to become full grown and ripe acorns by late summer. The chances of one acorn making it to become an oak tree are very slim — less than one in 10,000.
Everyone has seen squirrels busily gathering and hiding acorns for the winter, tucking them away in their homes and burying them in the ground. I also read that Bluejays and woodpeckers hide acorns underground.
But most acorns, it seems, get hidden by the oak trees themselves, who bury them under their leaves as they fall in autumn.
The oak tree family includes as many as 600 species, found chiefly in north temperate zones and also in Polynesia.
Oaks are prized as the major source of hardwood lumber for its durability, toughness and beautiful grain.
The bark of some oaks has been used in medicine, in tanning, and for dyes. Acorns have long been used as a source of hog feed, tannin, oil, and especially food. A symbol of strength, the oak has been revered in history and in myths.
All this information makes me appreciate the oak trees in my yard (none of which are coming down) and the one who spread its branches over my childhood even more.
Margie Richards is a reporter and office manager for The Madison County Journal.
Column
By Frank Gillispie
A racist is a racist, no matter the color of the racist
Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, a leader in the civil rights movement in the 1960s has never been able to master his own racist leanings. From time to time, he starts talking before he starts thinking and his biases show through. Recently, while working for a group designed to boost the image of retail giant Wal-Mart, he had this to say about the destruction of small community stores:
“Well, I think they should; they ran the ‘mom and pop’ stores out of my neighborhood. But you see, those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables. And they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs; very few black people own these stores.”
Now Andrew Young is not without stature. He has served our nation in offices as high as ambassador to the United Nations. Before the arrival of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, he had been the highest ranking black in our nation’s leadership. And he has done great works in the effort to end racism in America. So, it came as a surprise to many that he would make such a racist remark as that above.
But many of us with long memories were not surprised. You see, Andy has done it before. Many years ago when he was mayor of Atlanta and Democrat Hubert Humphrey was running for president, an advance party for the candidate came to Atlanta to arrange a campaign stop. For some reason, the campaign staffers ran afoul of Mayor Young, causing him to thoughtlessly declare them to be a bunch of “Smart Ass White Boys.”
Lewis Grizzard was at his peak of at that time and wrote a powerful and funny column for the Atlanta papers. He immediately fired off a column thanking Young for finally giving white males an identification. Every other group, he said, had an icon to represent them but white males were being neglected because they had none. Mayor Young had rectified that problem by giving white males an identity and that he, Grizzard, would henceforth carry his new identity with pride.
Many of us immediately joined the cause. I and others wrote letters to Grizzard asking to be enrolled in the society of Smart Ass White Boys. I had a cap made up with the slogan on the front and kept in my car for a number of years hoping for an opportunity to wear it in Young’s presence, but the opportunity never developed. I still have the hat somewhere on an upper shelf in my closet.
I have often said that a racist is a racist, no matter the color of the racist. Racism is as strong if not stronger in the black community than among whites. Andrew Young, Cynthia McKinney, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton and many other so called black leaders fall into the class of black racist.
We often hear black speakers proclaim that racism is still rampant in America. They are right. They declare that racism must be brought to an end. They are right. But we will never end racism by condemning it in one group and encouraging it in another. To end racism in America, we must attack it within all ethnic groups at the same time.
A racist is a racist no matter the color of the racist.
Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frankgillispie@charter.net. His website can be accessed at http://frankgillispie.tripod.com/
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