December 2, 2010
“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love." -Linus Van Pelt from "A Charlie Brown Christmas", 1965
It is the week after Thanksgiving and that is when I begin to watch for the magically decorated cedar trees to appear along I-70 in eastern Jackson County.
You know the trees.
Those little cedars that sit alone on highway embankments and beg for attention. They remind me of Charlie Brown's forlorn little tree from the classic television special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas".
In recent years, whoever faithfully decorated those trees in the 80s and 90s stopped.
I wrote about this before as have others, all wondering why. Was it a sad widower who decorated those trees out of love for his late wife?
Were there several people who randomly decorated the trees just for the pleasure of surprising others and spreading Christmas joy?
For whatever reason, I wish they would do it again.
Perhaps there are highway department reasons barring decorating trees along the interstate highways or simply the fact that it is not an easy task to do.
One must walk down precipitous banks while carrying the adornments, circle the garland around the tree, all in the dark of night without being seen by car headlights.
Otherwise if not at night, where would be the magic?
On the same subject, I recently noticed a similar AP story by Wayne Parry who wrote about a roadside Secret Santa in New Jersey:
"An annual Christmas mystery is playing itself out again along a busy New Jersey highway". A secret Santa is once again surreptitiously hanging ornaments from a large pine by the side of the Garden State Parkway in the dead of night."
The highway department there says they are not responsible. In fact, no one has claimed responsibility. As the story goes, for the fourth year in a row, ornaments appear gradually and eventually grow to about a dozen by Christmas.
The mystery is enthralling to watch.
But I digress; back to our own Charlie Brown cedars along I-70 in western Missouri and a story that bears repeating.
Thousands of motorists along Interstate 70 watched each December for the first sighting of the decorated cedars; thousands wondered who was responsible.
The sweet and simple decorations brought joy to hurried souls traveling the busy highway. For the briefest moment, surprised motorists believed in the magic of things that cannot be seen and in the wonder of it all.
At the very least, they made us smile.
I miss them terribly and if it weren't for my arthritic knees I might be climbing those highway banks myself in the dark of night.
I must leave that to the more athletic among us.
Some of those trees, however, are close to the outer road and technically doable.
I wonder.
"Before the ice is in the pools, before the skaters go, or any cheek at nightfall is tarnished by the snow. Before the fields have finished, before the Christmas tree, wonder upon wonder will arrive to me."-- Emily Dickinson
