My Little Tree

 

I’ve mentioned the little tree behind the building where I park for work a few times. It was emblematic of all the changing seasons. Budded out in the spring. Green in the summer. Colorful in the fall. Barren in the winter. I’ve used it as a metaphor for life.

 

The bigger Maple trees in the parking lot in front of the building are already magnificent in their red attire. And they’ve not yet reached their peak. I had a quick trip to the mountains last weekend, and I can tell you that the foliage is already showing off its fall colors.

 

Folks around here make a big deal out of the fall display. It’s one of the great things about living around here. I know that the leaf peepers make the Cades Cove Loop Road a bit of a nightmare and you will never find me there this time of the year, but there are sights to see wherever you go.

 

There is one stretch of road on my way home that was always as pretty as I would imagine the northeast must be (according to all the folks that visit there), but the necessity of keeping electric wires cleared has sort of put a damper on that corridor.

 

That’s OK.  Progress, I guess. I know that I don’t want to be without power for very long. A hot shower and fewer worries about losing a freezer full of food are part of the reason I’m a huge fan of the linemen that work at Fort Loudon Utilities.

 

Those people are truly heroes. It just so happens that our worst weather days happen to be when they are needed the most. Bad lightning storm? They’re out there. Roads and wires are iced over? On the job, while we call in forty-eleven times that our power is out.

 

Despite the growth around here, when you fly over, most of what you see is green. That’s because it is. Despite a population approaching 150,000, we are still largely rural, not even counting the third of the county that lies in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (known as “The Park”).

 

I love it. I’ve spoken quite a bit about “Green Therapy,” or the value of getting outside. There is no denying that it is good for our health. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. It’s why we build parks.

 

Also on my way home is the last remaining of the three oaks on Big Springs Road that marked the Hawkins/Pickens Line of 1797 which was to form a boundary between white settlers and the Cherokee Nation. It marked what was then the southern boundary of the United States. Settlers were supposed to respect this border and leave all lands south of the Line to the Cherokees but we know how that worked out.

 

This line was revised in 1802 and then became known as the Meigs Line, running from Meigs Mountain in Blount County to Meigs Post on Mount Collins and into North Carolina.

 

Those three Oaks were planted in 1797 and are directly on the original Hawkins/Pickens Line. Local outdoors rock star Dwight McCarter wrote a book about the Meigs Line in 2009. The second of those Oak trees fell earlier this year after the first one succumbed several years ago.

 

I miss those trees and now there is just one to remind curious minds of a piece of the local history. To me, it is an important remnant of the Cherokee Nation that thrived in these hills and valleys. It helps me to re-imagine what life would have been like for a native tribe that was here long before Columbus.

 

A group that was sophisticated, with a written language and organized social order, living life in the most perfect place on earth.

 

What’s all this got to do with sports. Not much, I imagine. I guess I just want folks to appreciate what we have around here. And get out amongst it. It’ll be good for you.