Home Country

By Slim Randles

September 17, 2004

When old Joe Gilliam began digging that hole in his front yard out there close to the street neighbors watched and wondered.

When he got his grandson to help him carry the shade tree sapling in its five-gallon pot from the pickup to the hole, people nodded.

Mystery solved. Old Joe's planting a tree.

After removing the root mass from the pot, the grandson disappeared and Joe was left to care for the baby tree. He carefully spread the tiny feeder roots out and tucked them in with soil. Then he gently packed more dirt around the tree's base and soaked it well with the hose.

No one else saw anything odd in old Joe planting that tree, either. But Joe's been retired going on 20 years now. He's old and getting more frail each year. And by the time that sapling gets large enough to give homes to squirrels and birds and shade to neighbors and a resting post for dogs, Joe will have been long gone.

But planting a baby tree is an affirmation of faith in the future. It is a gift to those yet unborn. It is a legacy of goodness, an old man's prayer.