A giant has fallen. Rising skyward almost 100 feet, the horse chestnut tree that stood behind, and towered above the building across the street from my home was recently reduced to sawdust, chips, and logs in just a few hours. Plagued by rot and insects, it was sad but necessary work. Months have passed, but sometimes as I look out my window, I briefly see a shadow or penumbra of the big tree. Memory teases eyesight and something within me wants to put it back where it once was. When you spend most of your life looking daily at a thing of such beauty and grandeur, even its absence becomes a kind of presence.
Across the street from town hall in Collinsville, Connecticut, the tree was crowded by buildings, and had pavement to within inches of its trunk. It was a survivor. Rot and marks left by chainsaws made it impossible to count rings on the stump, but looking at a turn-of-the-twentieth-century photograph with the tree alongside a building, and estimating how quickly a young horse chestnut would grow, I guessed that the tree was around 130 years old.
Although horse chestnut leaves shrivel and drop quickly in autumn without much color, the nuts that fall as days grow short and colder more than compensate for the tree’s dull foliage. Soon after the flowers fade, spiky green balls dangle from the branches like Christmas ornaments. From the time they could walk and through their teens my kids would grow excited by the sight, making frequent visits and anticipating the harvest to come.
By late September, the prickly burrs begin falling or split while on the branch, dropping chestnuts like wooden hailstones. The smooth, mahogany-like nuts with their fine swirling grain are shunned by squirrels and other animals and the bane of landscapers, but prized by children. They fit well into a child’s hands and pockets. A kind of wampum when I was a youngster, they were more valuable than baseball cards in some circles. We also employed them as ammunition for mock battle reenactments. Strung together, they made excellent garlands and necklaces.
My children were equally fascinated by the nuts and for years we filled bags, jars, purses and jewelry boxes. For a couple years my son set up a stand along the sidewalk, selling “lucky chestnuts” for a nickel. It didn’t make him rich, but he bought a few candy bars from the shop down the street. Mostly, the kids just liked collecting, and found delight merely in having them, counting them, and rolling them around like marbles. Each October, foraging trips became an after-dinner ritual. As late as last fall I found clutches of children picking up nuts from around the tree, carefully examining the perfection of each and stuffing their pockets. What to some adults is a nuisance from underfoot and above, was a source of wealth to children, wealth that had nothing to do with money.
Such memories floated through me as the whine and roar of chainsaws penetrated the house, although all was battened down against the February cold. It took several men, a large crane, a bucket truck, a chipper, and almost an entire day to reduce the tree to a stump. When I went over afterward, the stump seemed like a tombstone.
Planted back in the day when this native of Turkey was a popular ornamental, Collinsville’s tree became the tallest of its kind in Connecticut, renowned beyond its hometown. The name horse chestnut added some exotic mystery to its presence here. Although called a chestnut, the nuts are inedible and unrelated to chestnut trees. As for the horse part, which children often asked about, back in Turkey the nuts were supposedly used as a cough medicine for horses. It must have been a bitter remedy.
Collinsville is poorer for the loss of this tree. Such living monuments are something that defines a place. They become neighbors, friends even, a part of the lives of the people who live nearby. There should be some kind of solemn ceremony for the passage of such a life, a kind of sylvan funeral. Instead, I watched with morbid fascination as two television crews filmed the felling, reporters thrusting microphones into the faces of residents and chasing them down the street for comment. How shameful that the tree was newsworthy dead, but not alive.
We were lucky to enjoy this tree for so many decades and see it grow far beyond the norm. It seemed to watch over the neighborhood. It was part of our lives. Given all who enjoyed its presence, it was a true family tree.
