Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree

 

In 1973, Tony Orlando and Dawn had a hit song by that title. We Betz kids decided it would be a cool thing to in fact tie a yellow ribbon around our old oak tree. Here is a picture of our handiwork. Needless to say, none of us grew up to be artists or professional bow makers!

But that oak tree was something special. The story goes that when the electric company was putting up the power lines (must have been in the early 40's), they wanted to cut the oak tree down to have a nice short, direct path for the line to go from the road to the  farm. My uncle, Dale, refused to let them cut down the tree so instead they installed the power lines diagonally across the front yard.

Here is the earliest picture I've seen of the oak tree. Ok, so it's not really of the oak tree, but it's in the picture. The four kids on the corners are my four oldest siblings. The two in the middle are cousins. From the size of my sister, Jo, who apparently didn't want her picture taken, I'm guessing this picture was taken in 1956 or 1957. The trunk of the oak tree doesn't look very big yet. The tree must have been quite small when my uncle saved it from being cut down.

The oak tree was as much a part of the farm as Mother and Daddy were. No matter how much things changed over the years: who moved out, got married, had kids, bought a car, bought a house, etc, Mother, Daddy and the oak tree were always there to welcome us home.

As a kid I didn't think too much about the tree. I just enjoyed the shade it provided, especially between loads of hay that needed unloading on swealtering summer days. The tree also served as home base for ball games and a place to hang the deer that the men got each fall. My sister, Linda remembers my dad parking the car under the tree on a hot July day back in 1957 when my mom returned home from the hospital after our sister Cindy was stillborn. We passed by the tree every day as we got the mail and as we got on and off the school bus. The oak was there in November of 1970 when my dad was taken by ambulance after suffering a stroke. It was there when he returned home again weeks later. It was even still standing the night in April of 2009 when my dad left the farm for the last time...feet first. (I will blog about that another day.)

As I matured (although some may question if I ever really matured), the oak tree and my parents became more beautiful to me. I always loved my parents and I suppose the oak tree too, but there comes a time when you see "beyond the bark".  The tree had to have weathered countless blizzards and thunderstorms over the years. My parents weathered life's storms as well. Each storm shaped the tree and my parents into something I cherished.

I believe it was in the summer of 2006 that the oak tree was struck by lightning. If you look closely at this picture, you can see the "scar" that was left on the tree from the path the lightning followed to the ground. The tree survived, but was slowly dying. All of us kids saw the parallel between the tree's decline and Daddy's decline in health. Daddy was born in 1917, so was by no means a young man. But he'd survived so much: a stroke, the removal of several feet of small intestine, even a tractor tipping on top of him. (In fact we figured that he must be part cat since he seemed to have 9 lives!) The tree probably shouldn't have survived the lightning strike, but much like my dad, it seemed determined to go on. Each year it had fewer leaves and seemed  but a shell of it's former self. In much the same fashion, each year my dad became more frail and his ability to communicate diminished. On April 16, 2009, my dad was called home to Heaven. The oak tree remained.

In early March 2011, my mom decided the oak tree was to the point that it needed to be taken down. It was only a matter of time before a storm would take it down. My sisters talked to some loggers who said they would take the tree down once things warmed up and the ground dried up. I asked my mom to let me know the day it would be taken down so I could be there to witness it and take pictures. On March 31, the loggers showed up and decided to take it down that day. I found out from my sister via e-mail. I was so sad and upset. The worst part was that noone who was there had a camera to document it. Luckily, my mom was able to watch from her chair in the living room as they took the oak tree down. In hindsight, I am glad the men came and took the tree down when they did. If they had waited until May when we all expected them to, my mom would no longer have been there to see it.

 After the tree was taken down, my nephew, Chris, took several pieces of the wood. He is very talented with carving and carved a picture of an oak tree into a slab of the wood for my mom. She loved it and was very touched by it. She had it hung in her living room where she could see it from her lift chair where she spent most of her time in her last weeks at home. The crack in the wood was apparently caused because the wood hadn't dried much before the carving. If Chris had waited for it to dry, my mom would never have gotten to see it. I also like the idea of the crack representing the lightning strike.

When we visit the farm now, Mother and Daddy are no longer there to welcome us. Neither is the oak tree. However, I know some day when I am called home to Heaven, Mother and Daddy will be there to welcome me Home for good. I also half expect to hear the angels singing:

"If I don't see a yellow ribbon 'round the ole oak tree,

I'll stay on the bus,

Forget about us,

Put the blame on me,

If I don't see a yellow ribbon 'round the ole oak tree."

I bet my sister Cindy will also have hung a beautiful yellow ribbon and bow (unlike our pathetic looking one)around the biggest oak tree there. She has to be the one who got all the artistic talent!

****After posting this, I heard from my brother, Charlie who had heard a different version of how the oak tree was spared from the power company. It sounds like the real story is that in the late 1960's when other electrical work was being done on the farm, the electric company suggested cutting down the oak and running the power lines straight into the yard rather than at the diagonal way it was originally done. And Charlie also heard that it was my dad, rather than uncle who refused to let that happen. Either way, I'm glad the oak was saved or we never would have had the chance to put that pathetic ribbon and bow on the tree in the 1970's!