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Faced with Prospect of Losing Faithful Old Friend, Memories Flow

October 15, 2008 - I stopped in to visit the Old Woman in late summer – as I have for the last 16 years – to see if all was well in her neighborhood and to scout out the bowhunting prospects for the coming fall. I followed the familiar path down the hill and into the densest part of the woodlot, a walk I'd made so many times I could do it in the dark.

There she stood, a colossal white pine towering over a small clearing. A cold chill ran down my spine when I looked up through her towering limbs and saw a bare canopy, devoid of greenery. The Old Woman was dying.

What a life she must have had. You could see it was tough right from the start. Rather than the handsome, linear spine of forest pines, hers was oddly misshapen and split at the base into two massive trunks – the result of some childhood malady. Perhaps it was the poor, clay soil, rapid growth under direct sunlight, a weevil or some physical disturbance. Whatever the cause, she displayed the unmistakable twisted form of a pasture pine. "Junk," a woodcutter might say. But to me she provided an ideal perch in an ideal location.

The woodlot was much different when I first met her, twice as big and covered with massive pine and oak trees, some so big around that two men could wrap their arms around the base and not touch each other's fingertips. Scattered under the canopy were derelict apple trees. Maybe the area once held a small orchard, or merely a homestead. Regardless, the apples managed to survive, even under the dense, towering canopy. Some years the woodlot provided acorns; some years it yielded apples. There were several seasons over the nearly two decades I hunted it that the tiny woodlot provided both.

I met the landowner one day while out scouting for bowhunting spots. As we spoke, he waved his right hand in a sweeping motion across the woodlot, inviting me to hunt there wherever and whenever I pleased. Then I noticed he held a roll of flagging tape in his left hand. "I'm going to cut off some of it," he said. "Some" turned into most, and the ancient woodlot was converted back to field, then to a storage area for construction debris. Only a small corner, where the Old Woman still stood, was saved.

In time, the deer hunting actually got better there. With fewer places to hide, the deer became more concentrated in my little honey hole. And for a long time, I had it all to myself, save for a few hunting partners I occasionally brought in, sworn to secrecy, of course.

Then along came something called the expanded archery season. Deer numbers, according to the biologists, had gotten too high for the local non-hunting general public, and the state looked to bowhunters to solve the problem. In the nearly 10 years I'd hunted there I didn't notice any increase, but was more than willing to do my part just the same. And with the liberalized bag limits, so were dozens of neophyte archers.

I actually brought one fellow into the little woodlot – a neighbor who had just taken up bowhunting – and showed him around, emphasizing there was room enough for the both of us, so long as we respected each other's space. He did so. But he brought a friend who just couldn't stay away. Each season he'd move closer and closer to my stand, until one year I actually found his haul-up rope and bow hanger dangling disrespectfully from the Old Woman's limbs. Worse, he'd screwed several metal steps into her sides, the wounds from which now leaked sap.

The tree, like the woodlot, clung precariously on to life.

A couple of years later I noticed more activity in the woodlot, more flags, more heavy equipment on the front side. I held my breath as I took the first few tentative steps down the trail. All seemed fine from the back side. Towering pines and oaks still shielded the forest floor from direct sunlight, and slotted deer tracks dimpled the soil under the old apple trees. I followed the familiar trail through a grove of smaller pines, across the dry streambed and up the opposite bank. Clearing the top I could see the Old Woman's trunk just ahead. But the tiny clearing seemed so open. That's when I noticed her canopy was bare.

She was obviously sick and dying, maybe even dead; but why? Could it have been the metal steps the interloper drilled into her sides? Maybe it was just the cycle of life. She'd lived a very long one. Or perhaps she sensed the end was coming. Over the many decades she stood, she'd seen the woodlot shrink as civilization gradually closed in. Maybe this was her final act, giving her life back to the earth so the apple trees might produce one more crop – their best ever – to feed the squirrels, foxes and deer, and to provide me a perch for one more season.

Bob Humphrey is a freelance writer and Registered Maine Guide who lives in Pownal. He can be contacted at sportventures@juno.com

BOB HUMPHREY, Portland Press Herald, October 9, 2008


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