Final Word: Have you hugged your tree today?

By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY

I am old enough now to admit certain things that I might not have admitted at a less-secure age, i.e., when I actually cared what people thought.

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  By Veronica Salazar, USA TODAY

  Hugs and kisses for Mother Nature.

By Veronica Salazar, USA TODAY

Hugs and kisses for Mother Nature.

No longer.

I am a tree-hugger, for instance. I make no apologies for this. I love trees.

As they say, you can take the man out of the '60s, but you can't take the '60s out of the man.

Whenever I read about someone strapped to a tree to save it from being cut down, I want to join him. Or at least take him some granola.

I've never understood why "tree-hugger" is such a negative term. I've certainly been called worse. Someone thought I was a gay Republican once. Now that was embarrassing. A Republican!

But back to trees. There's an ugly rumor spreading through my neighborhood that an ancient magnolia tree that stands in a neighbor's garden might come down. For more than a century, it has proudly stood right across from my house. I look out on it every day from my office window. I consider it an old friend. Strong. Steady. Always there.

But a young family is renovating the house this spring, and rumor is they want to take the tree down so their children will have more light.

What they need is enlightenment.

Why do people not understand that it takes decades to grow a magnificent tree and only an afternoon to bring it down? And with it goes everything trees inspire?

Joyce Kilmer became famous for his poem about trees, but he isn't the only one who understood their powers.

For the past few years, author Richard Horan has been making pilgrimages to the homes of celebrated American authors, visiting the trees that still stand outside their study windows. While there, he gathered the trees' seeds to take home to grow.

His journey took him from John Muir's California to Robert Frost's Vermont to Harper Lee's Alabama and Thomas Wolfe's North Carolina. He also stopped at Gettysburg and Mount Vernon along the way.

What came out of his travels is a charming new book simply called Seeds.

So the guy's a little strange, but I certainly understand.

"In so many yards and parks across America, ancient trees have stood proud, watching all like gods," he writes. "They are both the silent witnesses of, and active partners in, our personal history."

Pray that my neighborhood magnolia will remain both.

E-mail cwilson@usatoday.com

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