Ney Park Oak
Ney Park Oak A tribute to my grandmother, Minnie Olson A gnarled and broken red oak that resides atop the highest hill at Ney Park always reminds me of my grandmother, Minnie Olson. The tree has spent the past century peering down on a lake below. Cancer-like burls disfigure its trunk while others invade the crooks of upper branches. Each burl represents the tree’s healing response to a lost limb or broken branch. A hole the size of sorrow gapes below a crotch halfway up the tree. A torn limb, the cause of the hole, is cradled by a copse of middle-aged oaks and ironwood as if to ease its passage toward inevitable decay. Arthritic limbs from the old tree stretch out with a benevolent gesture offering encouragement to the younger plants below. Saplings sprout from the litter of leaves that cover the forest floor. Each competes for a shard of sunshine that reaches them with miserly irregularity. ***** About a hundred years ago on a blustery fall afternoon in 1894, a sq