Dead Trees By Josh Mahan

It occurs once a year: American dead tree worship. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not against Christmas trees. Or shall we call them Holiday Trees. I even spent three weeks working in the Christmas tree fields of the Flathead Valley once, waiting for snow to fall. Buzzsaw. Shake. Bail. Load. Of the thousands of Christmas trees that we sent to the forlorn badlands of North Dakota, the only signs of life that I found were two bird’s nests. If I could stand in that field of spray-painted trees with Conrad Burns I think we could agree that it is possible for a stand of trees to resemble a corn field.

Groups of trees older than the Senate, and even older than the mere concept of Iowa, let alone its corn fields, should be treated a bit different, though, Conrad.

Reminds me of a story, I’ll keep it quick, I know you’ve got a bird in the oven and some more eggnog to drink.

It was late November 1989. Or was it 1990. Regardless, my mom and I were traveling north across western Montana, bound for a creek just outside of the now famous Libby. Back then Libby was a hard-scrabble logging and vermiculite-mining town. Not real friendly to the greens. It was unfortunate they were poisoning themselves with that damn mine. Libby isn’t the point of this story, though.

The point is, we’re up this creek and there are White House-official types, loggers, boy scouts, reporters, and hippies with signs. Quite the Christmas mix. The occasion: the harvesting of the White House Christmas tree for the first Bush. The hippies were hopping mad.  And it was a sad seen for that giant, creek-bottom spruce. He was a majestic old fellah. Furthermore he was a symbol of an abused forest on both the Kootenai, and else where. After a lot of hippie and logger posturing, the time came for that spruce to die. The loggers laid the hooks of their chainsaws into its thin bark. They sawed out a thick wedge from the giant’s trunk, aiming to lay the tree in a space of land right between the creek and the road.

The logger hefted his saw and went to work completing the cut on the other side of the wedge. Finally the beast let out a crack, and wavered ever so slightly in space. Who knows what force was at work that day. Maybe it was the logger. His nerve loose; his work sloppy from the encounter with the hippies. Or maybe it was the tree, wriggling like a dying halibut. It could have even been nature herself sending a breeze. Whatever it was -- that tree fell off its mark, and directly on top of the Boy Scout Suburban. Fortunately nobody was hurt. But you have to admit, it is kind of ironic.

Think of that one as you stuff the bird. And thank you for helping to make Lowbagger special and successful. Without you dear reader, Roselle and I could only continue to tell each other our boring stories. Speaking of Roselle I got a message a few days ago. “Josh, I’m in Portland. Call me at this land line number. I left my lap-top in San Francisco and lost my cell phone. Bye.” It was good to hear from him. He’s since reunited with his electronic companion, the lap-top that is. We would both like to wish Lowbaggers and Lowbagger-sympathizers across the country and worldwide a happy holiday season. Today marks solstice and the return of the light. Wishing you success and productivity with the extra minutes of sun. And, of course, peace in the New Year.

Happy Holidays and many thanks and cheers to Lowbagger readers.