Trees Hugs and Shutter Bugs

Tree Hugs and Shutter Bugs

Noel Laflin

December 7, 2001



Much of my life developed around trees.  I’ve got some old photos to prove it.

Earliest memories involve orange groves and eucalyptus wind breaks scattered throughout our town.  Frequent drives with our father could take us to a friend’s avocado grove in Tustin, ancient stands of California Live Oaks in Irvine Park or pristine pine forests in the San Bernardino Mountains.  Some of the best-remembered trees of all were on my own block, including Japanese elm, alder and magnolia.

I yearned to climb many of these towering giants from the time I was old enough to touch them or gaze longingly upward and wishing that I was just a bit taller.  Many of these first attempts ended in failure, as I could not even reach the nearest branch.  As I grew older and bolder, I devised new approaches to reach my goal.  One early sibling portrait pictures a very young me smiling sheepishly with a slight cut above my upper lip.  I had fallen off of misplaced wooden crates, used as a makeshift ladder for one backyard orange tree. I had attempted this climb just an hour before the photographer was due at our home.  My horrified mother first scolded me and then did her best to clean me up and try to hide the swollen lip, cut open by a jutting nail from one of the old crates.  I was five.  I love that old photo.

The first time I ever had the wind knocked out of me was due to a fall from an ancient Jeffrey pine at Idyllwild.  None of my Cub Scout pals thought to bring a camera to capture my turning blue.  The rotting rope breaking in my hands, as I attempted to scale the rough barked tree and the anguish of not being able to breathe for a minute or two, left an indelible picture in my head nonetheless.  A year later that same tree was struck by lightning and was badly burned and scared; but the tree survived.  A volunteer fireman did not, however, as he died of a heart attack while manning a water hose to put out that old tree’s flames.  It was only one the second time I had ever witnessed death up close.  I was nine.  There are no pictures but those in my memory.  Like the old tree that let me down and later burned, I too carry a scar into my middle years.  Some images don’t go away.  I am stuck with some negatives for life it seems.

Another Jeffrey, in another era, tried its best to kill me years later while I worked at a summer camp for the Boy Scouts.  Now, this tree had a right to its revenge, as I was the one who directed its downfall and pitiful resurrection as a peg-climbing pole.  The sixteen-foot long and twenty-inch in diameter beauty was taken down forcibly from its quiet vantage point in the forest with axes and two-man saws. It was then dragged, dropped and repeatedly manhandled with nasty grappling hooks by a multitude of Scouts, young and old.  We tortured poor Jeffrey in this fashion for more than half a mile before we finally stripped him of his last dignity and bark.  All of this was done under my sponsorship before we attempted to raise it once again in its new reincarnation as a physical fitness device.  I guess if I had been put through half of what that poor tree had endured, then I too would be mighty pissed and looking for payback.

It happened in this fashion: the damn thing fell on me. 

You see, the whole episode started with a hole.  It was fairly deep, about four-foot down and a couple of feet wide.  My plan called for the freshly denuded tree to be lifted and hoisted by many hands, as well as broad shoulders, causing the larger end to slide easily into the newly dug hole.  I believed that as it slipped into the ground, it would be fairly simple to right the former tree and keep it straight and level, as dirt and rock were quickly back-shoveled and neatly packed about its base.  This was a camp craft pioneering project, after all.  We were Scouts.  We could tame the wilderness for God’s sake.  Hummm . . .

So much for my theory.

Jeffrey, having been freshly hewn, was heavy with moisture.  It weighed several hundred pounds.  Complicating things further was the fact that we were running out of time.  This was the last day of summer camp.  Within hours, all of the free help would be long gone down the mountain.  This was my last project before the cool autumn weather set in and camp shut down for the winter.  Having no time for block and tackle rigging, we decided to lift the tree manually with the help of twenty-five or thirty volunteers.  Haste does make waste, I’m afraid.

Initially, the raw muscle power worked just fine.  The thick trunk of the tree gradually began its descent into the hole as planned.  Halfway down, however, it snagged on a thick root protruding from the side.  As I was part of the lifting party, I was first to witness the obstruction.  I was also standing dangerously close to the lip of the hole, shouldering my section of the tree. 

It was about this time that events became a bit confused.  I do remember the shouts of men and boys: “God Damn!  It’s slipping!”  Or was it: “Uh, Oh!” 

At any rate, phrases of this nature and more were being shouted all around me.  The damn thing was getting heavier by the second.  More cries of: “Stand Clear!” and “Get The Hell Out Of There!” rang out.  I tried to take their advice but found I had a slight problem; my left foot had slipped into the hole.  I was stuck.  Suddenly, all hands and shoulders disappeared.  All, that is, but mine. 

I remember the sick, crunching sound as Jeffrey rode me to the ground, popping its thick base out of the ground and reverberations echoing all throughout my body.   We were in a hard bear hug, he and I.  We lay flat.  Distant cries of “Jesus!” and “Holy Shit!” sounded so very far away.  My life flashed before me. 

“Hell, he was only twenty-two,” I imagined them saying.  “Now, look, he’s as flat as a cartoon character.  Wily Coyote meets the steamroller,” they would mourn.

Then faintly, I remember many hands coming to my rescue as the tree was rolled off of me.  The weight had been oppressive.  My chest was throbbing.  As I was carefully checked over, poked and prodded, people kept asking me if I was all right.  Since it was the second time in my life that a tree had knocked the wind right out of me, it was difficult to answer their questions.  The camp medic was checking me over. 

Eventually, people gently lifted me to a standing position.  I saw beneath me the mound of recently excavated dirt into which I had been pressed.  A discarded shovel, with blade up, had been inches from impaling me through the back.  I saw the full-length body impression in the soft, black soil.  I felt at my chest and detected an ache in the center region.  My head throbbed.  Despite all this, however, I was quite intact.  It was then that I heard a shutter click.  Someone was snapping photos.

Steven, my trusty aide, had captured the entire ugly episode on film.  Initially, I was ticked that he had not lent a hand in the raising of the log.  Afterward, I was grateful to have the photomontage as a reminder of just how quickly events can change in our carefully planned lives and take a turn for the unexpected.  How I escaped bodily harm with little more than a bruised sternum is beyond me.  But I’ve got the pictures to prove it. 

Jeffrey was eventually set in place.  Once the holes were drilled, I was the first to peg and pull myself to the top.  This happened the following summer, after a full recovery on my part.  I had never  before climbed a tree in such a fashion. 

I gained a greater respect for trees that day.  I never again took another out for use in such a trivial pursuit.  I learned to apologize to any tree first before the axe would swing, asking for forgiveness for what I was about to do.  I learned that trees have a photographic memory. They don’t forget a face. And some are quite capable of taking you down with them, should they fall.  

I’ve got some old photos to prove it.