We’ll Miss That Tree

Everyone has an ice storm story, and this is one of mine.

We had a tree in the boulevard in front of our house. It was just your run-of-the-mill, garden-variety ash tree, but it was our tree.

It was pretty thin in the trunk when we moved in 27 years ago, but but it grew thicker and taller. Now, though, there isn't much of it left--just one lonely partial trunk sticking up.

The night we got the freezing rain, Sharon heard part of it break, loudly. A big branch, a good percentage of the tree itself, was down. It just missed our deck but went clear across the driveway.

By then we knew we wouldn't be going anywhere the next day. Another part of the tree fell during the night and took up most of our front yard.

I got a tree service to come and cut it up, so now it's in a big pile of branches on the boulevard and our front yard. The tree guy says it's the city's responsibility, and the city says they'll pick up what's left of boulevard trees. More of it came down during the next night.

But at least we didn't lose power, as so many others did.

I was showing a co-worker a picture that I took with my phone (and wasn't able to transfer here), and she could tell it was a mess.

She asked, "Is that your tree?" I told her, "It was."