The Texas Hill Country is one of my very favorite places and I think it is beautiful. I also have quite an affinity for the wide, open spaces of West Texas. But in recent years I’ve discovered that the pineywoods of East Texas are very much in my DNA and have a much stronger hold on me than I knew.
I’ve long known that we are products of our upbringing. What I didn’t fully realize was just how much the area in which we were raised influences us as well. It was through my various travels – coupled with the wisdom that only age can bring – that my innate love of, and respect for, timber was revealed.
Last summer we spent a relaxing week in a cabin in the Broken Bow/Hochatown area, two charming little towns in the southeastern corner of Oklahoma, in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains. The expanse of pine trees everywhere we turned made it feel like home.
The land that eventually became Hochatown was initially owned by the Choctaw tribe, with 12 families moving into the area in the 1880s. Like Broken Bow, Hochatown grew around the Choctaw Lumber and Coal Company. But during the 1920s and 1930s, the prime lumber supply dwindled, and the lumber company moved to other areas, effectively bringing an end to the area’s primary industry.
While there, we spent a lot of time at Beavers Bend State Park which was constructed in 1935 by enrollees of the Civilian Conservation Corps through FDR’s “New Deal” program. Located within the state park is the Forest Heritage Center, a museum and learning center. Welcoming visitors to the heart of the Ouachita National Forest, the center is “designed to explore humanity’s continuing relationship with the forest.”
The various displays showcasing the integral impact of the timber industry throughout the area were both educational and fascinating, but there was one display that upon further study took my breath away with its touching beauty and simplicity. The display featured a poem entitled “The Tree Speaks.”
It goes like this:
“I am the heat of your hearth on cold winter nights;
The cooling shade from the summer sun.
I am the paper that feeds the press;
That makes the books for knowledge and history.
I can be a match stem or a ship’s mast.
I am the humblest cabin;
And furnish the greatest mansion.
I have served you from cradle to grave;
I can do no other.
I am a gift from God;
I am a friend of man …
I am the tree.”
More aware now of my innate feelings for timber and appreciation for it, I recognize that the signs were there all along … I just didn’t see them.
I love the symbolism of the tree and how it relates to family with its roots and branches. I have several prints of trees that I’ve collected during our travels. Back when charms on bracelets and necklaces were en vogue, my very favorite one was a tree. I find that I’m constantly taking pictures of trees and every time I pick up a paintbrush, my first inclination is to paint a tree.
Most recently, it was right there when I unpacked and set up my growing collection of decorative tabletop Christmas trees. Hubby and Daughter enjoy teasing me about the fact that I usually keep the collection out much longer than the other Christmas decorations. I think I now know why I do that.
