The Big Oak towers over the valley below. He is the elder of the forest. No other has stood as long. He has watched others come and go.
I first walked upon him 25 years ago; an old tree in a young forest. The others around him have grown, but as long as he stands, they’ll never be the oldest.
Finding the prime deer hunting location cluttered my thoughts when we first crossed paths. I noticed his statue in the forest, but paid little attention. Today, I stand in awe of his massiveness. I ponder all he has witnessed. Two hundred years or more have passed beneath his branches.
The last 25 years since we last met has seen plenty of change. Cell phones were nonexistent. A few lucky people had car phones. I had yet to buy my first home computer. But some things have not changed. The draw of the forest keeps me returning.
Today, I stand and gaze toward the sky tracing each branch back toward the main trunk. I think of my life and how each decision made over the last 25 years led off into a direction which in turn effected later decisions. Our past is the beginning of our future. As I continue to look and follow the branches of that wonderful tree, I notice how some of the branches abruptly changed direction finding that hole in the canopy with the most sunlight. I notice how some branches stop growing only after a short distance. A wrong turn maybe? Once discovered, the tree stopped growth in that direction and began new elsewhere.
But more importantly, I release the focus on my own small little part of this world and reflect on the endless possibilities of what has passed under this tree. Located here in Charles County, Maryland, one of the first places settled in this country by Europeans, the oldest of American history resides all around.
Given the tree’s location, a civil war soldier may have camped on the ridge top point a few feet away, or a revolutionary war soldier could have stood under these same very branches, pondering his own future and if he, a rebel against the King, was doing the right thing.
I notice large nails driven into the Big Oak. They lead as steps to a now fallen spur trunk of the tree. These steps were used by a deer hunter before the days of factory made tree stands. I surmise these nails are the reason the tree has escaped the last few loggings of the land. No mill will take him because of his past scars of metal in his skin. The short lived pain of nails has prolonged his time standing here as monarch of the forest.
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