Worth Doin’

I deal in trees all day, of course.

Well, the artists formerly known as trees, anyway. I try not to wax mystical about them overmuch. They are useful, sometimes beautiful, and I like using them to enrich other people’s lives, and hence, my own.

But not all cows go to the butcher, and some trees are worth more than the sum of their firewood and end table parts parts. Some trees matter more than others. They’ve stood sentry over people’s comings and goings long enough to earn a kind of affection. Some trees are worth saving from the saw. Some trees have a story to tell.

In League City, Texas, one big Compton oak was considered a part of the town, not just part of the landscape. Saving it was “worth doin’.” It passed the ultimate worth doin’ test, the one that’s mostly overlooked these days: Would you reach into your own pocket to pay for it? Would you take your own hands out of your pockets and work at it yourself? League City said: Yes.

Certainly, moving a tree of such size involves more than a bucket and a shovel. There are dimensions to be taken, soils to be tested, trenches to be dug and on-site boxes to be built. By the time all was said and done, the great Ghirardi oak had been transformed into a Texas-sized bonsai, the center of the town’s attention as it waited for its big day.

Linda at The Task at Hand tells the story of League City’s Oak move better than I could. Go there, and luxuriate under the shade of the Ghirardi’s Compton Oak.