Today, I touched the very tip-top of the old oak tree. Leaves and branches that had likely never felt the hand of man were easily within my reach. Who knows how many years it had stood there? The rings were too close, too packed together for me to even begin counting. It was strong and healthy, its trunk showing no signs of rot or weakness. I don't know why they cut it down--to make way for something else, or to make money, or some other reason--but that thing which had lived longer than all of us here, that surely stood before Ohio was a state, and maybe even before these states were united, surely when old Tom Lions roamed these parts, camped out in the creek collecting tongues on a rawhide, threatening the white men and children that theirs might be the next in his collection.
