The Tree That Owns Itself and Other Stories

Sounds like a book I'd write, but no. One book I finished on a recent trip to Minot Public Library, Margi Preus and Rebecca Gibson's Celebritrees: Historic & Famous Trees of the World (ISBN 9780805078299), has this white oak in Athens, Georgia displayed. But you can't see it, unlike the Chapel Oak in France with is still a site of pilgrimage or the Bodhi Tree in Sri Lanka where Buddha gained enlightenment after forty days; no, The Tree That Owns Itself (the original one) blew down in 1942. But one of its acorns became the current tree, or the Son of the Tree That Owns Itself.


For and in consideration of the great love I bear this tree and the great desire I have for its protection for all time, I convey entire possession of itself and the land within eight feet of it on all sides.


So William Jackson when he was a little older deeded a tree that he loved playing in when he was a kid, it is told. And then when Minot Park District cites that it had Dutch elm disease and charged us for the privilege of cutting it down and dragged its heels on doing it ... but I digress. Where else shall I go with this? Ah, how about Eric A. Kimmel and Robert Rayevsky's Bernal & Florinda (ISBN 0823410897) where the main character whose sole possession is a field of grasshoppers -- don't ask me, I wasn't consulted -- uses them to upgrade and wed his chosen, the mayor's daughter.

"That rascally innkeeper!" he cried in horror. "I meant to spend one night, not eternity!"


Then on this week following Valentine's Day I come upon Charlotte Pomerantz and Anita Lobel's Mangaboom (ISBN 0688129560) where Daniel a visitor is walking in the woods and comes upon a huge mango tree with a slipper and two envelopes at the bottom. Daniel steps in the slipper and is pulled up to meet the main character, a nineteen-foot-tall giant young lady. One's an invite to tea from her aunt -- always given when she meets an eligible giant -- and the other's from a secret admirer. And by the end of the story, we can't help smiling at WHO Mangaboom's admirer turns out to be.


... and last week I caught an octopus."
"Caramba!" exclaimed Mangaboom. "With your hands or with a net?"
"A net," said Daniel. "Octopuses are very wriggly."


Two of Rachel Isadora's books also caught my eye. And by THAT we mean they look good and they're easy to fit into the bookbag I brought to Saturday's used book sale. When you get to my age you are not restricted to reading scholarly tomes or dime-store romances or the latest weight loss fad. You don't have to be. Ben's Trumpet (ISBN 0688801943) about a boy admiring a jazz band -- but the trumpeter the most -- and A South African Night (ISBN 0688113893) where as the day comes to an end for the people in Johannesburg the night for the animals in Kruger National Park is beginning!


The next day, after school, Ben stops and listens to the musicians practicing a red hot piece.
He starts blasting away at his trumpet.
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Lionesses leave their cubs to hunt for food.   [This and its picture were the clinchers for me!]


And then, when I don't want to think very hard and just want to sit back and have some fun, I go to Alan Dean Foster, author of fantasies and movie adaptations galore! The Man Who Used The Universe (ISBN 0446903531) is one Kees vaan Loo-Macklin who rises from small time enforcer in a protection racket to heading the galactic underworld to shifting into legal businesses and ultimately reaching out in credits (re: making it profitable to be friendly with) to an amorphous alien race. And only one of THEM suspect a hidden motive behind Kees' methods. But we the readers don't.


"I learned long ago, sir," said Basright, "that appearances are unimportant. Simplicity is the essence of most critical decisions."


Which is probably better for everybody, I say the day after I'm over a mild dose of the flu. Something Pastor Gerald said or I inferred this morning when I referred to Sarah and Jeffrey's parent-teacher conference Tuesday still bugs me, though. Even when we are trying to be ourselves, we can be putting up a false ... let's say, more publicly pleasing face and not even realize we're doing it. I got harped on it by Martha a couple of months ago, and considering the examples we have drilled into our heads that the Bible's full of faultless people (my understanding's only Jesus is) to model our conduct by, we fail to realize that we who have faith still have issues. "We are who we pretend to be, so we must be very careful who we pretend to be."

And Kurt Vonnegut stole that last quote from me!


David