Experiencing Nature in Warren County, Indiana 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

It’s odd how the memory works. When I was in high school, I parked my 1953 Packard along Old 55 and took a short walk down a narrow stream that fed Big Pine Creek nearby. It was noon on a summer’s day. The red-winged blackbirds were trilling. The general buzz of insect life was less along the water than in the meadows above, and I heard the water trickling around smooth stones.

The Tranquility of a Stream

Drawing by Bruce Crane (1857–1937)

Engraved by John Sanderson Dalziel (1839–1937)

In The Closing Scene

Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1887

The colors in the stream bed were magnificent: pale green rocks within a setting of vibrant ocher and tan. I was surprised but not scared when I detected the tail of a blue racer snake as it hid from me in the sedge. Higher up the bank, monarch and black swallowtail butterflies visited the tall flowers of the old meadows. The stretches of pebbly earth beside the water twinkled with cabbage, sulphur, and alfalfa butterflies. An occasional dragonfly buzzed past, as if on a mission.   

I recall feeling at peace with the earth. The sensation was profound. It endured for the interval of time that I was strolling near the water. The drifting clouds in the bright azure sky accompanied me both above and in reflection while I took a few steps and paused to appreciate a wildflower before taking a few more steps and pausing again.

Since that summer’s day years ago, I have met celebrities, toured historical sites, visited great cities, and crossed the ocean, but none of the memories that I have made while engaged in these later activities have been as sharply detailed, as deeply engraved, and as often revisited as my recollection of the tributary to Big Pine Creek in my hometown. When I parked my car that day, I had no intention of making a mental archive of details that I would examine again and again for decades, but a treasury of a fleeting moment was stored in my mind forever.

During the harrowing events of life later on, the memory of looking closely at an often overlooked section of a stream has helped restore tranquility in the midst of chaos.

Whenever the author and editor William Dean Howells broke in a new ink pen, he wrote the name of his hometown of Hamilton, Ohio. One of America’s literary giants, Howells published 35 novels, 35 plays, 34 miscellaneous books, 6 books of literary criticism, 4 books of poetry, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. He shaped the destiny of fellow writers by editing their work for The Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine. In his book titled A Boy’s Town (1890), Howells wrote that Hamilton “was a town peculiarly adapted for a boy to be a boy in.” Although Howells lived and worked in Boston and New York, as well as having served as a consul in Venice, his pleasant upbringing in Hamilton was his foundation. While I remember the tiny stream that flowed into Big Pine Creek, I understand why Howells wrote the name “Hamilton” as naturally as he took his next breath.

Good Morning, Springboro! The Giant Sycamore

Springboro, Ohio, is two hundred years old. This blog installment is the first of six that will feature my original watercolor paintings depicting scenes in the vicinity of Springboro. If you would like to purchase one of the paintings, send me a message through my website at roberttrhode.org or via Facebook. The art measures 5″ by 7″ and consists of Cotman Water Colours by Winsor & Newton on acid-free Montval watercolor paper.

Giant Sycamore Near Springboro, Ohio

Original Watercolor Painting by Robert T. Rhode

 

Not far from the charming downtown is a gigantic sycamore tree. My mother always urged me to create a painting of a sycamore, and I have finally gotten around to honoring her request that was made so many years ago. The patterns and colors of the bark fascinated my mother, and she loved the curves of the heavy limbs.

One day, I had parked to appreciate the majesty of the giant sycamore, and, from across the street, a resident called to me, “That tree is over two hundred years old.” Imagine that! A tree older than Springboro itself! A tree that was already growing in that location before the Quakers had come to build blacksmith shops, houses, and mills to form a community! The resident said he had lived nearby for fifty years and that, when he first moved to that location, he had conversed with a woman who was approaching a century; the woman had told him that her father had said that the tree was standing there when he was a boy.

I wonder what the tree could tell us if it could talk. In a way, it does talk: that is, it expresses itself through the artistic arcs of its branches and the dappled canopy of its leaves. The immense trunk amazes me! Despite the colossal size of the sycamore, the tree comforts me. Even though I am a writer, an explanation of what I just wrote will not be easily conveyed. Something in the softly varied tones of the bark, in the leaves spread like broad hands, and in the steadfast posture of the tree lends a feeling of security. The sycamore is parental. It gathers its happy children beneath its branches.

The township has provided a table or two for picnics in the shade of the mammoth tree, and, when driving past, I have noted people enjoying lunch beneath the towering sycamore.

Creeks are favorite spots for sycamores to become established, and (Sure enough!) Clear Creek runs its sparkling course just behind the picnic area.

The patriarchal sycamore may well have been growing near Clear Creek during the American Revolution. Miami or Shawnee people may have camped beneath it. The tree could easily have been standing there when Ohio became a state in 1803 and was almost certainly in place when the War of 1812 began. Thinking of how many sunrises this living tree has witnessed dwarfs my imagination. It has stood serenely in one spot for so many days, while I have darted hither and yon in my hectic life. By comparison to the tree, I am a firefly flashing across the landscape for relatively few summer nights.

Peace is the message of the sycamore, which yet celebrates the rolling seasons. The tree stands as a tranquil philosopher—as nature itself, proving day by day a good way to live.