Everywhere I go I find a pal

Peter Weinschenk, Editor, The Record-Review

This past week, I took that long, lonely drive across snow covered central Wisconsin to the Chequamegon National Forest northwest of Medford to harvest a Christmas tree.

It was gray, foggy. I passed old barns, lumber mills, snow covered corn stubble and rural homes each decorated with a few strands of lights next to a plastic Santa.

Mile after mile, I drove. Slowly, very slowly, I managed to let go of a year’s worth of worries. Politics. Disease. The economy. All of these concerns melted away as I got closer and closer to the forest.

I consulted my Wisconsin Gazetteer for directions to a patch of forest where I might find a Christmas tree. I looked on the map and saw last year’s scribbling that demarcated good hunting grounds. It said “Big Rock.”

Within the forest, I started down the maze of numbered forest roads, looking for stands of balsam fir.

Finally, I found a familiar spot. I hopped out of my car with my beat up orange bow saw.

I entered the woods. It was kind of magical, really. Under the canopy of high pines and maples, I felt like I was in a cathedral. I sensed the trees not just as single individuals, but living within a community, sharing a hillside’s water, sun and nutrients. This stand of trees seemed to be telling me something. I sensed that the miles of tangled tree roots that spread across this rise overlooking a marsh of yellow-brown grass collectively were like a neural network, a vast intelligence. I felt I was walking across a massive tree brain.

I stood in my tracks and just marveled at what lay before me. I heard a deep, forever silence. There was no wind. I heard something like the yapping of a canine. I heard a couple of crows. I felt my heart beat.

This was not nature. That’s because I was part of it.

And then I laughed. And the sound of my laughter echoed across the ridge.

What was funny was my realization that I didn’t know whether I was in the woods with a saw in my hand to get closer to the spirit of the Christmas holiday or whether, in going to get a Christmas tree, I was hoping to get closer to the spirit of the forest.

I trudged forward in the snow and, holding onto some saplings, advanced up a ridge that held a lot of possible Christmas trees.

I found my tree. It looked good flocked with snow. I cut it down. The final inch of the trunk busted free with a big cracking sound.

I hauled the tree across the base of the ridge back to the car. This trail, doubtlessly, has been used by deer hunters for generations. I left a trail of swept snow behind me.

It was hard leaving the forest, the community of trees. It was hard to drive back to the world of cares, stresses and worry. But I did. I ate a liverwurst and onion sandwich and drank a cup of coffee. I piled back in the car, started up the engine and started home with a Christmas tree tagged with a $5 USDA sticker strapped to my trailer.

I didn’t go 50 feet when I looked up and saw an object eight feet long, four feet wide and four feet tall sitting alongside of the forest road.

The big rock!