The Old Burr Oak

It's a heckuva climb--up and down--to get there, but the park service makes it possible for its visitors to stop by, to visit up close and personal. Way down there, where a couple hundred steps finally end, stands an ancient burr oak people who  know such things figure grew from some random seed in an age approximate to the pilgrims taking their first American steps at Plymouth Rock--1630-something. It is, they claim, just this year, 376 years old--give or take a winter.

Unless you've been hiking all day and you're 70-something years old, you really must take this Jacob's Ladder stairway down to the old gent. I mean, respect is in order for any being at all of his vintage. I made the trip, so let me bring you up closer here.

It's a comforting thought, largely romantic, I suppose, to imagine this old gent in Ponca State Park to be an upraised hand, branches for fingers. The Christian in me can't help but think of the way people raise their hands for a blessing. That his majesty here on the slope of a loess hill stands there yet today, still receiving blessings turns him into a sermon, if you're church-bred like me.

But then, up close, that accepting hand seems almost frightening, a multi-belly-ed Java the Hutt. I'm serious. There's nothing beautiful about him, or her. She wears a series of Halloween faces on her thick truck, none of them comely. She's hardly beautiful.

Well, let me take that back. There is something beautiful about him or her or it--her not-to-be-believed age. It's a wonder she's lasted this long. The hills all around had to burn more than once in all those years, sprawling fires lit by random strokes of lightening. Somehow, someway, this old lady or man got passed over, so that today, he's still standing and, for the 376th time, shedding its burnished canopy of leaves. 

I can't imagine she didn't love those kids who beat me down those stairs. Old folks always do. When they left and I stood there alone beside the ancient one, I wondered what it might say after seeing me creep down all those stairs. What I'd like to think, after all those years, is that the stretch of her sanctification give me a minute, then, wearing a smile on all those odd faces, ask me graciously about my day. 

There's no particular reason this particular burr oak has been blessed with eternal birthdays. Nothing in its DNA offers a clue to its million days here on the slope (plus 235 thousand more--do the math yourself). Call it luck or fate, if you will. There's nothing supernatural about her or her insides.

When, last summer, we celebrated our 50th anniversary, people shook our hands and congratulated us, as if 50 years together was an accomplishment. It seemed like a odd thing to say, as if we'd stayed on a bronc for a half century. But the sheer repetition of so many "congrats" convinced me finally that it was. Not everyone gets there.

And so it is for King or Queen Burr Oak. She's beautiful, despite her paunchy trunk, messy faces, and crooked arms, worth all those stairs, even if you're an old man with cardboard knees. After all, she's been there when the only humans who ever dropped by--and they made it down the slope without a stairway--were the Omaha. If her majesty has a memory, good night! it's seen a lot. 

That bunch of kids ran down all those stairs before I even got a good start. I took it easy.  On the way up too. But let me tell you, if you ever get to Ponca State Park, that old tree is worth a visit.

Seriously, 376 years old. More power to you.