I like trees.

On vacation this past week, I actually told someone (whose job involved creating wetlands) that my mama raised me as a tree-hugging Democrat and that over the years I seem to have taken it literally. I grieve when trees are cut down. Several years ago I considered fighting for one that was going down to make room for a supermarket. I wrote a letter to the editor, but the tree still went down. During that same era, the rented facility that was being used by the church we attended was slated for demolition. The church moved to a new building, and the rented one was cleared away brick by brick. The wooded area to the north was demolished, then the slightly rolling landscape was flattened beyond recognition so that a strip mall could go in. Barnes and Noble moved in, along with an Officemax and Best Buy. The parking lot is flat. No trees remain, of course, unless you count those used to make the books housed in Barnes and Noble. The most significant vegetation includes a few spirea bushes in the oval sections marking the parking sections.

I don't know if my children will sit in a Redwood to keep it upright or fight for a 100-year-old oak, but I know they enjoyed our camping last week among pine trees, cedars and birches. I hope that the smells, the shade, and their mother's occasional sigh of contentment will stick with my kids as they mature. I hope they grow to like trees, too.