Arbor Day, Grant Wood 1932
I started this article mainly because it’s spring planting season, but also because I like this Grant Wood painting. I hope you do too. In the United States, Arbor Day dates back to 1872, when an estimated million trees were planted in Nebraska.
Arbor Day was a big deal when I was a kid. It was a sweet way of involving kids with something that might last forever. People don’t seem to care much about it anymore.
The Arbor Day I remember was at Franklin School in East Orange. Our teacher told us about it, then took us out to the front lawn, where there was a tree sitting in a wheelbarrow, its roots wrapped in burlap. It was a spindly little tree, something like the one in the painting above that you have to look really hard to see. We took turns digging a hole, one shovelful for each kid. Then one of the janitors brought over a hose and we watered our tree.
I tried looking with Google Earth this week to see how our tree was doing, but it wasn’t there, the spot is just grass again. Maybe it spread out too wide and some dopey kid hanging on a branch fell off and got hurt and spoiled it for everyone. Or maybe it got taller than the school, so tall it drew lightning. That’s the one I want to believe.
That’s all I have to say. If you want to know more about Arbor Day, you can Google it.