Fantasy and Dreams: The Old Oak Picture Tree

Monday, April 03, 2017

The Old Oak Picture Tree

Pop loved to take pictures. Mostly, he liked to take picture of flowers and animals instead of people. I preferred pictures of people because, many years later, it’s the pictures of people I loved that I treasure rather than that trumpet vine growing up the fence post or those polar bears at the Buffalo Zoo. I’m just sayin’…

But when Pop did take pictures of people, he liked to do it in front of the huge oak tree in the front yard. I have no idea why except he thought it was a good background. I believe every member of the family made it to that tree to get their picture taken at some point. There was the occasional picture taken in the orchard, but everyone got in a picture in front of that old oak.

My maternal grandfather once told Pop he needed to trim the limb from that oak that stretched out over the roof, but Pop refused because, “That’s where the owls hang out.” He was very attached to that limb and to the birds that “hung out” 0n it. A few days after Pop died back in 1981, that limb fell. And some years after my oldest sister sold the house, the old oak disappeared from the front yard. We had spent our lives living in that house with that old oak and it made me sad at its loss.

Here are just few pictures Pop took in front of that tree.