Trees, Steve Loved

Steve's Words:

The driver, the
trees, the sun and the seasons.

Yesterday I named three favorite winter trees at 86th and 5th Ave -
"reaching, curling and spreading".

I've gotten so I love trees. When I first got my glasses in about the fifth grade, I came out of the
optometrist's to realize that I could actually see the individual leaves. I had come to see trees as little kids draw
them - circles of green on trunks of brown.

It was before disease stripped the Midwest of its American elms, which really did make cool arched boulevards of our
modest main streets. Old towns now look like denuded suburbs.

Before that only many decades or the big winds near tornados
could kill off a few of them.

In my backyard there was a huge one which took several kids
to touch hands around.

When we learned to get to its lower limbs with a rope, we
began to build a tree house in a very high crotch. My dad took over and built a
big, solid one, much lower down. For beams he used the varnished hardwood
pieces of a big old pipe organ, which had just been replaced in the next door
church where he was pastor. He did not view little kid helpers as actually
helpful or safe, which I understand, but also regret.

Today, in New York City, I often reverse "you can’t see the forest
for the trees". Here they stand
more isolated, individual.

In winter we can see the fabulous differences of their limb
structure. Since they've been cared for and pruned over their decades of life,
I sometimes wonder if an old arborist could say, "Now that's pruned in the
Mendelssohn manner. And you can see O'Neal's work in that one."

The isolation and care of our trees in Central and Riverside Park and around the Natural History museum may
explain why we enjoy some of the few stands of these magnificent trees which
remain in North America.

We all enjoy the first leaves in the spring. The green that
will later seem uniform at first has great various beauty, just as the fall
dying leaves draw bus tours to Vermont,
but may be less noticed in the midst of our city.

Then of course there are the many stages of a tree's cycle
of renewal that each species present to us as the days grow longer, and then
shorter.

If we look up close, we can see the wonderful little
structures that nature has constructed over ages to give each tree the best
chance to live on.

Horse Chestnuts are my favorites. Lindens are good too.

As well as the changes over the warmer months, each day
trees present many different views to us. At high noon, the shade of their
leaves cools us, but obscures the tree's details.

But as the sun lowers, its light cuts between the leaves and
lets us glimpse the structure that we love so much in winter.

These are things I've learned to see over time as I grew
older. Who says there’s nothing to look
forward to. Just like the little piece
of white paint that looks like a gold ring on the finger of a Rembrandt
portrait.
---------------------------

Friday, November 27, 2015

Meeting someone Steve stood up for

Dear Steve,
On a rushed morning this fall I called a cab to take me to work.  Lucy Ramos was my cab driver. She's been driving for five years, and since it always surprises me to find a woman doing this work, I asked how she got into it.  Turns out she was laid off from a baking factory in the Bronx, Kraft. Yes! Stella D'Oro! Your last great mission, dear Steve!  She'd been a packer for 20 years, as an Equadorian immigrant in New York City. She was paid a good wage with decent benefits.  Everything changed when the owners sold the company.  Eventually, the only options offered to her was a job in Ohio where the new owners were moving, or some networking help jumping from one job to the next on the fly. She started driving the cab then.  I wanted to tell you all about meeting her Steve! She and I loved talking about you in the cab ride! It was great to share our stories -- great to feel you within our dialogue!
Love, Neice Audrey
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