OUTDOORS & REC
B2 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
STUMPS
Continued from Page B1
They jut from the pinegrass
like elderly molars, eroded
in many cases to a jagged
facade of their original bulk,
much of the heartwood
having returned to the soil
that nourished it.
The sight of one of these
relics often spurs a queer
sense of nostalgia — queer
because I have no personal
connection to the history of
this place, yet I feel some-
thing like the same sen-
sation as when I ponder
events that are part of my
own life story.
This emotion is pleasant
but also a trifl e unsettling.
It’s as if the weight of all
those years has roiled the
placid progression of time,
creating a series of swells
that leave me slightly
seasick.
As I kneel beside the
gaunt remnants of a tree
that might once have
soared 100 feet, and run
my fi ngers across its sand-
papery surface, I am struck
always by the dichotomy
of constancy in a world
defi ned by change, by
events both modest and
epochal.
I imagine how much has
happened while this for-
merly grand tree, which
once perfumed the warm
summer wind with its
strong sweet scents of bark
and sap and needle, was
making its inexorable tran-
sition to the mere husk that
is all I will ever see, or
touch.
That tree might have
been standing still when
the armies of Europe were
wasting themselves in the
mud of France and Flan-
ders, at Ypres and Verdun
and the Somme.
But surely it was a
stump — though a much
more solid stump than
now, solid enough to make
for a proper stool — when
the stock market crashed
in 1929.
What, I wonder, did
it look like 16 years later
when, less than 20 miles
away, the people of Baker
were joining their fellow
Americans in celebrating
the end of another, even
worse, world war.
Or on Nov. 22, 1963,
when our president was
slain.
Or on any other land-
mark day in the ensuing
decades.
I know only that it was
here, in this very spot, on
every one of those days.
And every other day in
between.
Inevitably this exercise
leads me to think about the
very beginning of the story
— the birth, as it were, of
the stump, when it ceased
to be a tree.
It is very nearly a
compulsion.
I wonder, even though I
know I will never reveal the
truth, about the men who
stood on this very patch
of ground, possibly before
any of my grandparents
was born. I think of them
as they sized up this tree,
gauged its lean as against
the lay of the land, and
plotted where they would
wish for it to fall if they did
the work properly.
I try to conjure, from
the unfathomable depths of
time, the sound as the saw
made its fi rst bite into the
bole, the sharp fresh smell
and the bright white drift of
the chips as they began to
accumulate, like the fl akes
of a winter squall, around
SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2022
the leather cork boots.
Who were these men?
Were they here on a
scorching July afternoon,
the sweat soaking their
plaid shirts even before
the sawing commenced?
Or were they grateful for
the exertion to warm their
blood on a frigid February
morning?
What did they think
about, these men who had
never seen television, per-
haps never even heard a
radio?
Was the felling of this
tree for them a routine job,
anonymous among the hun-
dreds they dropped in a
career? Or was this tree
made slightly memorable
because someone smashed
a thumb under a wedge, or
sliced a thigh in an instant
of carelessness, lulled by
the rhythm of the slashing
saw, leaving a scar that the
sawyer still remembered,
still felt the vestigial searing
pain, in his own fi nal hour?
The stump of course is
silent, no more able to tell
its story than a chunk of
stone can explain how it
came to be, belched from
a volcano or compressed
from layers of sediment
over the millennia on the
bed of a distant sea.
Yet the stump is also
here, a real and solid link
to those men, even if the
surfaces they touched have
long since decomposed.
To people, with our puny
lifespans, wood seems all
but perpetual. But com-
pared with the rocks, even
the span of a Methuselah
pine is a brief interval,
scarcely measurable.
The stumps that enliven
my hikes in the hills above
the Powder River will persist
long after I am making my
meager contribution to what-
ever patch of soil I end up in.
But one day they too
will disappear, their stories,
whatever they could have
been, fi nally and irretriev-
ably lost.
This saddens me in a
way I fi nd impossible to
express.
It is, I suppose, the pecu-
liar melancholy that attends
the fi nality not of death
itself, but of the moment
when the last shred of any-
thing that once lived can no
longer be grasped, or knelt
beside in a lonely woods.
La Grande’s
Certified Arborist
SPRING
Pruning
M ICHAEL
Certified Tree Care
Planting • Pruning • Removal
M. Curtiss PN-7077A
541-786-8463
CCB# 200613
michaeltcurtiss@yahoo.com
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by Stella Wilder
SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2022
YOUR BIRTHDAY by Stella Wilder
Born today, you have a great deal of charis-
ma and could, if you so choose, take all sorts
of advantage of all sorts of people simply by
flashing your irresistible smile and saying and
doing what they think they want you to say
and do -- but that’s not your way. You are far
more genuine than that, and far more inter-
ested in dealing with other people in ways that
are suitable to the situations in which you find
yourself.
SUNDAY, MARCH 27
ARIES (March 21-April 19) -- A little
gentleness can get you much further today
than any use of force. You can perhaps get
someone to agree to your terms before you
ask.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) -- A minor
victory turns into a major one today, and
you’ll have something to celebrate when you
realize you’ve charted a new path forward.
SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 2022
GEMINI (May 21-June 20) -- It may be
next to impossible today for you to choose
sides, though the fact that you understand
both points of view can serve you quite well.
CANCER (June 21-July 22) -- A Taurus or
Gemini native appears as if from nowhere
today and influences you in a manner that you
may be talking about for quite some time.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) -- You’ve managed
to balance some very disparate elements, but
today your work may be threatened by some-
one who doesn’t know what it’s all about.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- A family
member needs precisely what you can give
today, but this means you’re going to have to
alter what was a “perfect” schedule.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) -- You have what
someone wants, and vice versa -- so there is
likely an arrangement to be made here that
can satisfy both of you quite well.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) -- You may
have to do something you swore you’d never
do -- but very few people will notice, so your
reputation should not be at risk.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) --
Others are relying on your clear vision and
honesty at this time. You can provide what is
needed without asking too much in return.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- You
may wish things would return to “normal,” but
the fact is that what you are experiencing may
well be the “new normal,” and that’s that!
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) -- You can
get a good deal of work done early in the day,
leaving plenty of time for you to engage in an
activity that is personal in nature.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) -- You can’t get
something for nothing today -- try as you
might. The experience gives you a new appre-
ciation for what someone has done.
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DO YOU HAVE....HURTS,
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12 Step Biblical Support
Harvest Church
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