A happy memory from our time on Buford Avenue in the early 1960s — I talked about that a couple weeks back1 — is planting an acorn from one of the oaks there.
An Acorn and Memories
Among the many things I don’t remember from that time is when we planted it.
I suspect it was in the fall, since that’s apparently a good season for starting an oak seedling.2 And by spring; well, life was getting interesting, and that’s another topic.
Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure we planted the acorn after we returned to Moorhead.
Seasons
Whatever season it was, I remember being happy when the acorn sprouted: and impressed at the size of the leaf. A full-size oak leaf on a tiny stem.
My oak flourished in the back yard of 818.3
Time passed.
The tiny oak became a (very) small oak, and kept flourishing: even after we dug it up, carried it in a pot to 1010, and planted it in that back yard.
More time passed.
My father retired. My folks got ready for moving to the farmstead where my mother grew up: which involved a major reconfiguration of the house. There’s a story or two there, which I may tell: eventually.
The oak was still small, but by that time it had grown a hefty taproot. We dug it up again, taking as much of the taproot along as we could. My father planted it at the farm, a few yards east of the house.
Despite his best efforts with careful watering and tending, my oak did not flourish in its new spot. One spring, no new leaves budded. My oak was gone.
Something like a half-century later, I still tear up when remembering that loss.
Even so, my memories of that little oak tree are happy. Partly because of how it began. Partly because that little oak had traveled with me and my parents through so many seasons of my life.
I could develop that thought into a long memoir of my adolescence and early adulthood, strung along the branches of a long-gone tree.
But I won’t.
Instead, I’ll talk — briefly, for me — about my father and another tree.
A Tree Grows on Campus
My father started working at Minnesota State University Moorhead when its name was Moorhead State Teachers College. It’s had five monikers so far —
- Moorhead Normal School (1888-1921)
- Moorhead State Teachers College (1921-1957)
- Moorhead State College (1957-1975)
- Moorhead State University (1975-2000)
- Minnesota State University Moorhead (2000-present)
— which is more than you need, or maybe want, to know about one of Fargo-Moorhead’s colleges/universities.
Livingston Lord Library — named after the school’s first president — was part of a massive expansion of the place from 1958 to 1968. The first part of the building went up in 1960.4
Planning, Pavement, and Leaving Room For a Tree
I’m not sure how much my father had to with planning the new library. But since he was MSC’s head librarian, he’d have had at least a hand in it.
The library’s service entrance, where they took deliveries, was on the south side.
There’d been a good-sized tree there, a few yards away from where trucks would pull up to unload books. Steering a delivery truck back there wasn’t overly hard, but the time a semi driver tried — that’s another story, and I’m drifting off-topic.
Which reminds me. I spent most of my life in the Upper Midwest. In my dialect of English, folks often called a smallish truck, the sort you’d use to deliver parcels smaller than a pallet, a “delivery truck”. On the other hand, some folks call such vehicles cargo vans, panel trucks, panel vans, or box trucks. I love my native language, but admit that it’s — complicated.
Where was I? The new library’s delivery entrance. Right.
Construction happened in 1960, so planning would have been in late 1959 or earlier. ‘Thinking green’ hadn’t caught on yet.
Bulldozing that good-sized tree would have looked like an obvious step in prepping the site. In the short term, it’d make construction easier. In the long term, generations of delivery drivers might have thanked the planners.
My father was at least as practical as anyone else: maybe more so. But he’s also my father. Where others saw a disposable obstruction, he saw a tree.
That’s why the new driveway/sidewalk running along Livingston Lord Library’s south side had a large circular gap near the library’s delivery entrance. And a good-sized tree growing in the center of that gap.
Legacies
I haven’t been to the library, or Moorhead, lately. Not in person. But I’ll make the occasional virtual visit, often using Google Maps and Google Street View.
The tree is still there, apparently: although its leaves may be getting thin. How recent Google’s data is for that location, I don’t know.
It’s a happy thought, that the old tree is still there; giving shade in the summer and occasionally getting in the way of students and delivery vans.
How long it will last, I don’t know. But I do see its survival as one of my father’s legacies: and a testament to his good sense, insisting that the new paving accommodate both its growth and the tree’s need for rainwater.
My oldest daughter and I get together on Discord each evening, circumstances permitting. Last Wednesday our chat flittered past my oak, and around trees in general:
[oldest daughter] “I suspect there’s quite a bit more to the story because there is a small oak tree in the area you mentioned.“
[me] “Aha! Maybe Dad/Gpa Gill replanted – – –“
[oldest daughter] “I wouldn’t be surprised. He was as sentimental as you.
Your Russian olive is still a thorny, bushy mess to the south, too.[me] “So they didn’t clear it. 😉 Awww.”
[oldest daughter] “Yes!
As much as [second oldest daughter] and [her husband] find it annoying to mow around, it’s still there.
Often surrounded by a circle of uncut grass.[me] “Well, good for them 🙂 That’s nice – – – but – – –
😀 ‘natural prairie’ 😉 “[oldest daughter] “[second oldest daughter] said that it’ll stay put as long as you’re alive.”
[me] “That’s – very thoughtful of her. I really wish I could see a way of getting up there in person. Oh, well.
“I’m genuinely touched by that – I hope it’s not a hardship. It is, after all, just a tree.”
(Discord chat (February 26, 2025)) [emphasis mine]
Maybe my father planted another oak there. But I wouldn’t put it past him to find some way of reviving the little oak’s roots.
Finally, a few thoughts about trees, the Sixties, and all that.
I like trees. A lot. So did my father.
One of the good ideas that got traction in the Sixties was seeing trees, plants, and critters in general as something other than a source for toothpicks or an impediment to Progress.
Some other ideas that got traction, and occasionally spun out of control: well, I’m far from delighted at every change that’s happened since then.
And my memory’s too good for me to yearn for ‘the good old days’.
That’s as serious as I’ll get this week.
Time for the seemingly-inevitable links:
- “A Crate of Oranges”
(February 1, 2025) - “Early Diagnosis, Tardy Treatment, and a Gimpy Hip”
(January 25, 2025) - “Liberal? Conservative? Republican? Democrat? No: Catholic”
(July 27, 2024) - “Sledding With My Dad: Good Memories”
(June 22, 2024) - “Green Sahara, Environmental and Climate News”
(July 30, 2022)
1 Another memory from my seasons on Buford Avenue:
- “Life Lessons: Grocery Bags and a Bottle of Ketchup” (February 15, 2025)
2 “…Conditions considered best for bur oak germination were not well documented in the available literature….”:
- Quercus macrocarpa, Fire Effects Information System (FEIS), Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
3 Naming the houses my folks and I lived in:
- “A Change of Pace: Family Stories” (November 23, 2024)
- Minnesota State University Moorhead
- Minnesota State University Moorhead – Livingston Lord Library
Golden Valley Supply
Here and there, I wish I could do a lot to preserve nature and do other good things, but things like this story of yours remind me that a lot won’t be done if little things aren’t done. Thank you very much again, Mr. Gill.
Little things add up. It’s a cliche. It’s also true. 🙂