This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

The "Crazy Tree Guy" saves a legacy of Gettysburg

David Rutter (theeditor50@yahoo.com) is a freelance writer, author and former newspaper editor. He lives in Lake Villa.

By David Rutter

 

There’s no point to an obsession that falls short of being a magnificent obsession. Passion without passion is silly.

Find out what's happening in Libertyvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

Perhaps the word obsession itself is a shorthand signature to describe ideas we won’t quite understand and appreciate even less.

Find out what's happening in Libertyvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

So I likely was obsessed last weekend, and I might as well accept the term and take pride in it. Or maybe I was just committed to a good Idea I couldn’t shake.

 

You judge.

 

I drove 1,400 miles to find a tree. Seven hundred miles there on Day 1., 700 miles back on Day 3. One day in between to collapse in a hotel room.

 

 The object of this quest wasn’t even a complete tree, just a tiny sapling barely three feet tall. But there might be only one of them now, and the frail mother tree is located in one place and one place only.

 

The 300-year-old honey locust overlooks the site in Gettysburg, Pa., where Abraham Lincoln delivered the Address. The Witness Tree has been battered by weather and time, but still hangs on. It overlooks the graves of 3,500 Union soldiers who died only yards from where they are buried.

 

Over the years, the local historical society in Gettysburg – specifically forester and organization president Bruce Kile – raised saplings from that tree to sell as a fundraiser. There are 1,600 of them sprinkled around the eastern United States. But the National Parks system frowned on the initiative and suggested strongly it end. So the historical society stopped.

 

There will be no more saplings from the old tree, the last living creature from the battleground where the nation was preserved in 1863. The towering honey locust literally is the last witness. No one can tell how much longer the tree will live.

 

So I called and found Bruce Kile.

 

Are there any saplings left?, I asked.

 

One, he said.

 

Could I acquire it?

 

Yes, he said. But I can’t ship it. So you have to come and get it.

 

So I did.

 

But an obsession is thin and unappealing if it’s not interesting enough to recruit allies. Mine were good friend Jennifer Evans, who gave up a free weekend to help with the driving. The other was Kile.

 

And a third was Clint Bull, the manager of the Enterprise car rental franchise in Libertyville. When I described my plan, he thought it was such a good idea that he donated a new car for the weekend.

 

His staff designated me as the official Crazy Tree Guy, a title happily accepted because you can’t fight facts.

 

So now the sapling has been placed in the hands of the botanical scientific staff at the Chicago  Botanic Gardens. They will plant it, and raise a new honey locust in my family’s name.

 

Theoretically, I own the tree, but that’s a description with no meaning. No one owns history. We all are caretakers of the little tree and the memories of what Gettysburg means. Can the nation endure? Can the little tree?

 

The little tree a gift to the people of Illinois from me and the friends who shared in the weekend obsession.

 

If you are going to be a Crazy Tree Guy, there might as well be a point to the craziness.

 

 

David Rutter  (theeditor50@yahoo.com) is a freelance writer, author and former newspaper editor. He lives in Lake Villa.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?