Confessions of A Tree Addict

We slept beneath open windows with screens filtering the scents of jasmine, climbing roses, pink geraniums and Japanese plums. Aah, summers in the Big Easy!

Some days, our bikes would glide like the wind, jump familiar curbs and land in City Park, where for $3.50, we could rent paddle boats or canoes for one hour of mayhem on the mossy citron-crusted lagoons. Other days, we'd take the long ride to the lakefront and watch the sailboat races while sprawled on beach towels with spearmint snow cones and teen magazines.

Then there was my twelfth summer....the endless summer.

Hurricane Betsy landed in New Orleans in the middle of the night and dispersed her wrath from the shores of Lake Pontchartrain to the banks of the mighty Mississippi. Her wicked winds thundered through the air like howling wolves, hungry for destruction. Before nights end, her spiraling tentacles struck the base of the massive oak tree across the street; its branches busting through our living room window and stopping cars in their tracks. It took seven days to get the power back on in Lakeview, ten days more before St. Anthony's would re-open. So for two weeks, I was crowned queen of the tree fairies.

Perched atop my uncontested throne, I owned the neighborhood, halting all challengers and forcing them to creep backward down the street while paying homage to me and my mighty oak.

I made friends with confused squirrels and ate breakfast with robins and sparrows. Those endless days were my first real lesson in human nature, offering a unique vantage point while camouflaged beneath nature's canopy in the center of the street.

Within a few days, bicycles owned the street, bringing more and more kids to climb and sit on parts of my domain that had never before felt human arms and legs. They were anointed my knights and maids-in-waiting.

The summer ended abruptly the day the tree crew came to dissolve my kingdom. I was glad school was back in session, for if I had witnessed the abolishment of my throne, I might have staged an embarrassing protest that I couldn't possibly win. And deep inside, I knew if I had watched the once-majestic giant humbled into manageable stumps and carted off in a dump truck, a part of me would have died too. And when that first car drove past our house, making it to the end of the block, I might have pitched a cherished acorn at it.

Strange how quickly a taste of power can manifest and take root...and how just as quickly, it can be snatched away.

Never underestimate the power of a tree.