Standing Trunk

I spent the early part of my life finding mischief in the woods of Long Island, most of which were burned off in the early 19th Century. The newly-built railroads had their wood-burning locomotives spewing live cinders into the air as they sped along and the results were wildfires.

This standing dead trunk of a silver oak caught my interest while my sister and I walked her dog. A perfect habitat for woodpeckers, it would not have been left upright so close to houses when I was young. We would cut down trees for exercise, to build forts, and to gather firewood. Now I was seeing trees that were felled by storms, decaying as Nature wills. There is a path that is used by dirt-bike and trike users, but my sister said that those same people had recently cleared out all the litter and dumped trash from the wood.

It's good that the little that's left of Long Island's woods have been saved, to some extent, by the internet, which pleases young people now more than swinging an ax or pulling on long two-man saws in the fresh air.