Clyde Moore: Grateful for my life's tree-lined path

I’m pretty sure I’ve LUVed trees all my life. I am certain they are a significant part of what brought us to Winter Park.

When I was a kid in North Carolina we had a big fir tree in our front yard. I remember my brother and I climbing it, enthusiastically encouraging our wire-haired terrier, Spike, to climb up behind us. He did, too. Dogs climbing trees is pretty funny. For a 40-something now, it’s a wonderful memory of childhood, as you can’t get much better than trees and dogs.

Later on, as I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I don’t think I’d ever seen fall more beautiful. Maybe some of the nostalgia for college mixed in, but a campus full of large trees, muted earth tones falling all around, scooting along the ground in the breeze, it was wonderful … even on my way to class.

I do this thing at certain moments in my life. I’d call it a mental picture, but it’s more than that. When a moment is so good I want to try to remember it forever, I stop and look, watch, focus on not simply what I’m seeing, but also how I feel at that moment. Among the times I’ve done that in my life, I’m surprised how many I easily remember that include trees, many simply staring up at a star-filled sky between one’s branches. I’ve never found a better frame for storing a starry night.

We lived in Atlanta for 12 years, and I remember a specific business trip that left me stunned. I always liked the window seat, wanting to spot where I lived, seeing downtown, this location, that, places I enjoyed. But outside the perimeter on this return I remember seeing huge swaths of property cleared, simply red clay and dirt below, trees erased as easily, mindlessly to me, as marks on a chalkboard. I remember thinking the whole point of living so far out, at least in part — wasn’t it about having more trees? I lived in an area in the city that had so many, it seemed insane to drive far outside to have so few.

In 2001 we moved to Fort Lauderdale and my LUV of trees grew more. We were tropical greenhorns in that first week when we decided not to brave a downpour, instead ordering Chinese delivery. I remember a woman at the door, large brown bag in hand, drenched. I expected her to berate me for ordering delivery on such a night. Instead, she simply pointed to the side, and exclaimed: “That is the largest ponytail palm in the state of Florida.” After Hurricane Wilma, and my discovery of what the state calls “Champion Trees,” I proved her correct. I measured the base at a seemingly outrageous figure in circumference. The forestry employee they sent to correct my obvious embellishment came up with nearly a foot more. In addition to that, we had the tallest tree in the state of Florida one street over, a kapok tree that — I believe I correctly remember — towered 13 stories into the air. It came down during Wilma. Our ponytail took Wilma’s 167 mph gusts in stride. This tree had, shall we say, in 2012 vernacular, “back.”

And so, looking back, not surprising my life’s tree-lined path led me to Winter Park. We are surrounded by some amazingly beautiful trees in Winter Park. A recent debate emerged after many had been trimmed for electrical wires. I’m no expert on how all that is best handled, so I leave it to them and trust the best and most appropriate steps will be taken.

I consider myself, however, to be a bit of a tree connoisseur, and know there are many around like me. So, in the next month, the Winter Park-Maitland Observer and I would like to invite you to join us in celebrating the glorious tree canopy we have all around. They’re home to the abundant birds of prey in our area, they shade us from the heat, they dazzle our visitors, and make our home feel so much more like a home.

Send me photos of your favorite trees in the area to [email protected] with ‘TREES’ in the subject line. Please identify its location, provide any narrative you wish including why you believe it is so special. Please include first and last name and city (Winter Park, Maitland, Baldwin Park, College Park, etc.). We’ll likely highlight a few along the way, but in early July we’ll include stories and pictures shared by you. At that time I will also write about a few of our local trees and some of the experts who deal with them and show them the tender LUVing care we want for them.

Poet Joyce Kilmer wrote: “I think that I shall never see / A poem [LUV]ly as a tree.” Nearly 100 years later, not much has changed.

Clyde Moore operates local sites ILUVWinterPark.com, ILUVParkAve.com and LUVMyRate.com, and aims to help local businesses promote themselves for free and help save them money, having some fun along the way. Email him at [email protected] or write to ILuv Winter Park on Facebook or Twitter.