This essay was written in the Spring of 2000.
The Cabin
I thought we would never get there. The roads just kept going on and on, and we were nowhere near a mountain with any decent trees. Everything in sight was farmland or grazing land, with only sagebrush and a juniper or two to give some variety. I couldn’t conceive of a cabin site with this kind of surroundings. What were my folks thinking? My mom must have been drugged when she saw this land, or she would never have agreed to this as a place for a cabin retreat! I kept my mouth shut – well, almost. I think my dad had answered enough questions. Either that, or he just wanted us to be surprised. He just kept saying, “You’ll see what it’s like when we get there.” That was it. No reassurances, no comforting words about pine trees or quaking aspens, just that same old sentence, “You’ll see when we get there.”
“How long before we get there?” I asked, hoping it was hours, so that the landscape would have plenty of opportunity to change dramatically.
“Just another three quarters of an hour, or so.” Dad answered. He probably thought I was anxious to get out of the car, and would be happy with his answer. I wasn’t. I took another look around. There were hills on both sides of the road, and a stream in the valley between that meandered back and forth, in no hurry to get where it was going, until it flowed into a flat area to form a marshland. On the east side of the marshy area were a few cottonwood trees, more junipers, and grayish green sagebrush bushes. It was the most promising view I’d seen yet. My dad drove right past it without a glance. Hope disappeared with the last glimpse of treetops through the rear window of our olive green ’68 Chevy Kingswood Estate station wagon, with genuine faux wood panels.
“What’s the name of this place, anyway?” I wanted to know. I thought that maybe there was a slight chance that Dad, to fake us out, had decided to drive in a round-about way to a place we’d camped before. We’d been camping in so many wonderful places, every one of which had boasted pine trees. My mother was very particular about trees. She wouldn’t camp in a place that didn’t have what she considered to be the “right” kind. Even cottonwood trees didn’t make the grade, and Box Elders were on her hit list. We only camped in northern Utah canyons that had the good sense to exclude those undesirable “garbage” trees. I couldn’t tell the difference, personally, but I did know a juniper from a pine tree, and the latter were nowhere in sight. Could I trust in my mom’s discretion, or had she temporarily lost her mind?
“It’s called Indian Canyon, and no, you’ve never been there before. Now, we’re almost there, so just sit back and wait. Enjoy the drive and stop asking questions!” Mom intervened, seeing that Dad was getting tired of my badgering.
She had to be joking! Who could enjoy this drive? It was the homeliest part of Utah I had ever seen. To my 12-year-old way of thinking, we were in the middle of nowhere. Actually, we were just north of Price, but I’d never been to Price. There’d never been a reason to go there. They didn’t have the right kind of trees.
Several miles north of Price, Dad turned east onto a small highway that wound its way up and down and side to side until we were all nearly sick with the motion. Actually, I’d never been car-sick before, so to me it was like a roller-coaster ride – but I’d seen what this kind of road did to my sister sitting next to me, and it wasn’t pretty, nor did it smell nice – I wasn’t looking forward to that kind of a change in scenery. Finally, the hills and dips leveled out and so did the road. We were still surrounded by sagebrush as far as the eye could see.
Off to the east, to my delight, I began to see the hills taking on a more promising look, and when the car turned in that direction, everyone became more expectant. We knew we were getting closer, and there were pine trees in sight! Dad pointed out a balancing rock to the south of the road. This was as fascinating to me as the Grand Canyon was. How did that huge boulder stay there? Things were definitely looking up.
The car began its climb through the foothills and around another bend, and another, until we reached what, at last, looked like a place I could be happy in. The canyon dropped steeply off to our right, and far below we could see a glimpse of a beaver pond. That was the last water we would see, as we continued climbing, higher and higher. Passing Avintaquin campground, the road twisted one last time and we pulled off to the right. Dad had to turn the car completely around before we could see the rut-filled dirt road that ascended the hill that the highway had been cut through. Steep cliffs on either side of the road had obscured our vision from anything else, and if Dad hadn’t stopped there to turn the car around, from our angle, we would never have known that the dirt road existed.
The station wagon wasn’t all that thrilled at the change in the terrain, but every passenger it carried was. We bumped, slid, and dodged our way up that hill at what seemed like a 60° angle until, at the top, the road leveled out. I was more amazed at my father’s driving ability than I had ever been before. I was also ready to get out and walk, but we weren’t there yet. The dirt road was just the beginning of another adventure. It wound its way through a dense forest of all the right trees. Many were fallen, branches askew, with rotting, burnt sienna-colored stumps.
Rabbits raced across the road and birds swooped down, as if to scare us away. There were squirrels everywhere, chattering and scolding our menacing green machine with the faux wood panels. It was movie-like, the way the woods might be represented in a film. I was not unfamiliar with forests, but I’d never seen one like this before. It seemed like a fantasy forest, like a scene out of Disney’s Snow White, and it was ours! We could explore every square inch of this land, and create what we wanted out of it. We could hike for miles without worrying about intruding on someone. Just think of all the adventures we could create here!
The car meandered along under the canopy of leaves, dappled sunlight bouncing all around us, dancing as the trees moved in the slight breeze. We came into a clearing where the road split, and Dad turned the car downhill, onto the road less traveled. For about 75 yards we were bounced around until our heads hit the ceiling, as the tires found every bump and rut in the so-called road. We kids loved it, but I don’t think my mom was having quite as much fun as we were. Finally there, dad stopped the green monster while a cloud of dust caught up to us and ultimately settled.
We spent the day exploring, eating, and listening as my dad and my Uncle Wayne described how the cabin would be situated. They had us stand just so, to show us what the view from the front door would be, and which of these perfect trees would have to be cut down for the building that was to begin within a few weeks. My mom’s sister and her husband, along with my folks, had bought a pre-built cabin that was slated for some kind of construction fair back east but never made it. The construction company that had owned it was one my dad did a lot of floor covering work for, and they sold it to him for a good price. It was disassembled and shipped to our mountain property, and my family, along with extended family and friends, worked that first summer to put it all back together again.
While we worked on building the cabin, we stayed at the campground across the highway, where there was fresh water and latrines. Everyone had jobs to do, and we didn’t always do them happily, but we did them. No distinctions were made for our genders. The girls and boys worked at the same jobs, however manly or girlish those jobs might have seemed. My most hated job was digging trenches for the water and gas pipes to be buried in. The trenches ran between the cabin and the little generator house that stood about 50 feet away. Some of my siblings, cousins, and I took turns wielding shovels and picks to break through the rocks and roots obstructing our goal. We made a game of it by pretending that each obstruction was actually put there to make our lives miserable, and we were out to show them that we were in charge. We took turns working, yelling at rocks, and resting, and eventually accomplished our task. That completed, I helped my uncle run the gas pipes under the cabin. It was fun for me to spend time with him – he always had such a wry sense of humor.
My favorite chore of all was shingling the A-frame roof. There was nothing I liked better than being up high, and this was the ultimate in adventure for me. My sister, Jeanmarie, and my three elder brothers (and most likely others who I can’t remember), were all up on the roof pounding hammers, frantically working on getting it shingled before autumn’s end. I wonder if my mother had any qualms about us being up there. If so, I never knew it.
Winter came too soon to finish the interior, and we knew there was still a lot of work ahead to make it habitable. We looked forward to that time with eager anticipation.
Bright yellow snowshoes sank through the first few inches of powdery white to the crunchy layer of old snow beneath, sending flakes whirling about our legs. It was a new experience, walking on these big milk-crate–like contraptions, and not as easy as it looked. Being about 13 years old, with strong legs and plenty of energy, I quite enjoyed myself. I met the white stuff face first more than once before I got used to keeping my feet far enough apart that I didn’t trip myself. The snow was more than 5 feet deep, unpacked, and when you fell, you fell “in” the snow, not just “on”it. Standing up was almost impossible without help.
My parents loved camping, but this kind of strenuous physical exercise was not usually their cup of tea, especially loaded down with boxes of supplies. What made this occasion so different? Why were their spirits so high, then, and what were they so excited about? I think their mood stemmed from the knowledge that their dreams had reached fruition. The pride they felt at knowing that these 10 acres of woods had been purchased for our family’s use made them stand a little taller. I believe the adrenaline rush of accomplishment gave them the energy to plow through those yards of snow without lagging. What had been a dream-like adventure in the car, seemed like miles of cold misery on snowshoes. At last we came to the shell of the cabin.
I was so exhausted that I didn’t think I would ever be able to take another step, and let myself fall into a deep bank of snow. My mom and dad had some work to do before the heaviest snows came, and this was their opportunity. The rest of us had come to play. A few bites to eat, and I was revived enough to do a bit of exploring.
The landscape was completely different in this season. Those leaves that had thrown freckled shadows onto the ground were now buried under mounds of snow, their mother trees bare and stark in the sun. The clearing in front of the cabin was beautiful, without a sagebrush plant in sight. It was so quiet, not a sound anywhere, except what noise we had brought with us.
Early the next summer, as soon as the roads were dry enough for travel, we spent most of our weekends completing the interior. The walls were sheets of tongue and groove paneling, which were all precut to the right size, making the job an easy one. The living room had built-in seating which was covered in the same orange and brown 1 ½” shag carpet as was on the floor, but was well padded for comfort. The three bedrooms and the loft were also carpeted in this stylish fashion. The loft was wall to wall sleeping bags most of the time.
The kitchen had a cooking range that seemed like a big sister to the Easy-Bake Oven. It was the littlest thing I had ever seen. We could barely fit a cake pan in the oven, and forget about trying to put two frying pans on the stove-top at the same time. We burned the lovely orange Formica back-splash with a frying pan one morning, and from then on, double frying pans on the stove were a thing of the past.
Dad was very clever at making tables, and to accommodate all the children in our two families, he got an old chrome table, removed the top, and built a new top that fit our bench seating area perfectly. We could then pull the table out for cleaning, which we did an awful lot of.
Being in central Utah, the cabin property naturally had a lot of sagebrush on it. Sagebrush is one of those“undesirable” plants on my mom’s hit list. Aunt Karma had a similar dislike of them. After discovering a tick on one of us (at the nightly bed-time inspection ritual), she and my mom decided that that sagebrush bushes had to go (as if their unsightly appearance wasn't enough of a reason). We kids knew that meant we would be put to work again, which we were not looking forward to. We tried every argument we could come up with to get out of the job, but they would not be swayed. The entire summer, while the men worked on completing the interior of the cabin, my siblings, cousins and I cut and hacked away at sagebrush plants. The entire
meadow area in front of the cabin was to be cleared of the offensive bushes, and each time one was cleared away, it was hauled to the middle of the clearing, there to await the winter-time bonfire the adults had planned for it. We were beyond being good sports about this work, and grumbled constantly. We tried everything to get out of it, including volunteering for whatever work the men could find for us indoors, but to no avail. Our mothers can be very single-minded when they wanted to be.
The pile was more than nine feet tall, and about twenty feet across, when the last plant was thrown to the top of it. Some of its bulk was made up of dead limbs and fallen trees that the women had wanted removed from the “yard” around the cabin site. Incredibly, my mother and her sister were not through taming the forest yet. They wanted the lower branches and twigs removed from the trees, to improve the view from the windows. They wanted all the loose twigs on the ground near the cabin gathered up and removed. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we actually swept the dirt to get them all. We couldn’t believe it! It’s hard to fathom, but it’s true. All the refuse from this final cleaning was added to the pile awaiting cremation in the meadow. We were excited about the prospect of watching the enormous bonfire that would result when it was burned to the ground.
The adults waited for the snow to get good and deep before they snow-shoed in again. My dad has an intense respect for fire, and didn’t want to run any risks by having a bunch of marshmallow-toting, stick-wielding urchins around. We were banned from the festivities. We felt cheated at not being able to take in the sight after all our hard work, but dad’s word was law, and we didn’t argue. Everything went well, and the following spring the adults threw seeds of all kinds of out into the meadow. A few months later, and in every summer to come, we had an incomparable view of the meadow in full bloom. It was always with a sense of pride and accomplishment that I viewed that meadow, knowing how we had transformed the landscape into a beautiful and inviting place. We still thought our mothers were crazy, but we couldn’t argue with the results.
The surreal quality of that meadow and forest has never left me. It became a place of adventure when I was in my teens. When boys became important to me, the forest gave me a place to meditate and consider life. This was the place where I learned to enjoy quiet solitude, to savor my solitude. As I got older it became a retreat from the world – a place I could be alone to find peace. I have a physical longing for the cabin and its tranquil setting, but it is out of reach now, sold years ago. I considered it my own little piece of paradise. I treasure the memory of the times spent there, and am grateful to my parents for letting me help build it, making my bond even stronger than it would have been otherwise.
My husband and I occasionally go back just to look at the land. I don’t linger because it is someone else’s property now, but not far from the cabin there is a tree with my name carved into its bark. Below my name are the names of each boy I fell in love with. I carved my husband’s name in it last. It was a tree my mother would approve of.
“How long before we get there?” I asked, hoping it was hours, so that the landscape would have plenty of opportunity to change dramatically.
“Just another three quarters of an hour, or so.” Dad answered. He probably thought I was anxious to get out of the car, and would be happy with his answer. I wasn’t. I took another look around. There were hills on both sides of the road, and a stream in the valley between that meandered back and forth, in no hurry to get where it was going, until it flowed into a flat area to form a marshland. On the east side of the marshy area were a few cottonwood trees, more junipers, and grayish green sagebrush bushes. It was the most promising view I’d seen yet. My dad drove right past it without a glance. Hope disappeared with the last glimpse of treetops through the rear window of our olive green ’68 Chevy Kingswood Estate station wagon, with genuine faux wood panels.
“What’s the name of this place, anyway?” I wanted to know. I thought that maybe there was a slight chance that Dad, to fake us out, had decided to drive in a round-about way to a place we’d camped before. We’d been camping in so many wonderful places, every one of which had boasted pine trees. My mother was very particular about trees. She wouldn’t camp in a place that didn’t have what she considered to be the “right” kind. Even cottonwood trees didn’t make the grade, and Box Elders were on her hit list. We only camped in northern Utah canyons that had the good sense to exclude those undesirable “garbage” trees. I couldn’t tell the difference, personally, but I did know a juniper from a pine tree, and the latter were nowhere in sight. Could I trust in my mom’s discretion, or had she temporarily lost her mind?
“It’s called Indian Canyon, and no, you’ve never been there before. Now, we’re almost there, so just sit back and wait. Enjoy the drive and stop asking questions!” Mom intervened, seeing that Dad was getting tired of my badgering.
She had to be joking! Who could enjoy this drive? It was the homeliest part of Utah I had ever seen. To my 12-year-old way of thinking, we were in the middle of nowhere. Actually, we were just north of Price, but I’d never been to Price. There’d never been a reason to go there. They didn’t have the right kind of trees.
Several miles north of Price, Dad turned east onto a small highway that wound its way up and down and side to side until we were all nearly sick with the motion. Actually, I’d never been car-sick before, so to me it was like a roller-coaster ride – but I’d seen what this kind of road did to my sister sitting next to me, and it wasn’t pretty, nor did it smell nice – I wasn’t looking forward to that kind of a change in scenery. Finally, the hills and dips leveled out and so did the road. We were still surrounded by sagebrush as far as the eye could see.
Off to the east, to my delight, I began to see the hills taking on a more promising look, and when the car turned in that direction, everyone became more expectant. We knew we were getting closer, and there were pine trees in sight! Dad pointed out a balancing rock to the south of the road. This was as fascinating to me as the Grand Canyon was. How did that huge boulder stay there? Things were definitely looking up.
The car began its climb through the foothills and around another bend, and another, until we reached what, at last, looked like a place I could be happy in. The canyon dropped steeply off to our right, and far below we could see a glimpse of a beaver pond. That was the last water we would see, as we continued climbing, higher and higher. Passing Avintaquin campground, the road twisted one last time and we pulled off to the right. Dad had to turn the car completely around before we could see the rut-filled dirt road that ascended the hill that the highway had been cut through. Steep cliffs on either side of the road had obscured our vision from anything else, and if Dad hadn’t stopped there to turn the car around, from our angle, we would never have known that the dirt road existed.
The station wagon wasn’t all that thrilled at the change in the terrain, but every passenger it carried was. We bumped, slid, and dodged our way up that hill at what seemed like a 60° angle until, at the top, the road leveled out. I was more amazed at my father’s driving ability than I had ever been before. I was also ready to get out and walk, but we weren’t there yet. The dirt road was just the beginning of another adventure. It wound its way through a dense forest of all the right trees. Many were fallen, branches askew, with rotting, burnt sienna-colored stumps.
Rabbits raced across the road and birds swooped down, as if to scare us away. There were squirrels everywhere, chattering and scolding our menacing green machine with the faux wood panels. It was movie-like, the way the woods might be represented in a film. I was not unfamiliar with forests, but I’d never seen one like this before. It seemed like a fantasy forest, like a scene out of Disney’s Snow White, and it was ours! We could explore every square inch of this land, and create what we wanted out of it. We could hike for miles without worrying about intruding on someone. Just think of all the adventures we could create here!
The car meandered along under the canopy of leaves, dappled sunlight bouncing all around us, dancing as the trees moved in the slight breeze. We came into a clearing where the road split, and Dad turned the car downhill, onto the road less traveled. For about 75 yards we were bounced around until our heads hit the ceiling, as the tires found every bump and rut in the so-called road. We kids loved it, but I don’t think my mom was having quite as much fun as we were. Finally there, dad stopped the green monster while a cloud of dust caught up to us and ultimately settled.
We spent the day exploring, eating, and listening as my dad and my Uncle Wayne described how the cabin would be situated. They had us stand just so, to show us what the view from the front door would be, and which of these perfect trees would have to be cut down for the building that was to begin within a few weeks. My mom’s sister and her husband, along with my folks, had bought a pre-built cabin that was slated for some kind of construction fair back east but never made it. The construction company that had owned it was one my dad did a lot of floor covering work for, and they sold it to him for a good price. It was disassembled and shipped to our mountain property, and my family, along with extended family and friends, worked that first summer to put it all back together again.
While we worked on building the cabin, we stayed at the campground across the highway, where there was fresh water and latrines. Everyone had jobs to do, and we didn’t always do them happily, but we did them. No distinctions were made for our genders. The girls and boys worked at the same jobs, however manly or girlish those jobs might have seemed. My most hated job was digging trenches for the water and gas pipes to be buried in. The trenches ran between the cabin and the little generator house that stood about 50 feet away. Some of my siblings, cousins, and I took turns wielding shovels and picks to break through the rocks and roots obstructing our goal. We made a game of it by pretending that each obstruction was actually put there to make our lives miserable, and we were out to show them that we were in charge. We took turns working, yelling at rocks, and resting, and eventually accomplished our task. That completed, I helped my uncle run the gas pipes under the cabin. It was fun for me to spend time with him – he always had such a wry sense of humor.
My favorite chore of all was shingling the A-frame roof. There was nothing I liked better than being up high, and this was the ultimate in adventure for me. My sister, Jeanmarie, and my three elder brothers (and most likely others who I can’t remember), were all up on the roof pounding hammers, frantically working on getting it shingled before autumn’s end. I wonder if my mother had any qualms about us being up there. If so, I never knew it.
Winter came too soon to finish the interior, and we knew there was still a lot of work ahead to make it habitable. We looked forward to that time with eager anticipation.
Bright yellow snowshoes sank through the first few inches of powdery white to the crunchy layer of old snow beneath, sending flakes whirling about our legs. It was a new experience, walking on these big milk-crate–like contraptions, and not as easy as it looked. Being about 13 years old, with strong legs and plenty of energy, I quite enjoyed myself. I met the white stuff face first more than once before I got used to keeping my feet far enough apart that I didn’t trip myself. The snow was more than 5 feet deep, unpacked, and when you fell, you fell “in” the snow, not just “on”it. Standing up was almost impossible without help.
My parents loved camping, but this kind of strenuous physical exercise was not usually their cup of tea, especially loaded down with boxes of supplies. What made this occasion so different? Why were their spirits so high, then, and what were they so excited about? I think their mood stemmed from the knowledge that their dreams had reached fruition. The pride they felt at knowing that these 10 acres of woods had been purchased for our family’s use made them stand a little taller. I believe the adrenaline rush of accomplishment gave them the energy to plow through those yards of snow without lagging. What had been a dream-like adventure in the car, seemed like miles of cold misery on snowshoes. At last we came to the shell of the cabin.
I was so exhausted that I didn’t think I would ever be able to take another step, and let myself fall into a deep bank of snow. My mom and dad had some work to do before the heaviest snows came, and this was their opportunity. The rest of us had come to play. A few bites to eat, and I was revived enough to do a bit of exploring.
The landscape was completely different in this season. Those leaves that had thrown freckled shadows onto the ground were now buried under mounds of snow, their mother trees bare and stark in the sun. The clearing in front of the cabin was beautiful, without a sagebrush plant in sight. It was so quiet, not a sound anywhere, except what noise we had brought with us.
Early the next summer, as soon as the roads were dry enough for travel, we spent most of our weekends completing the interior. The walls were sheets of tongue and groove paneling, which were all precut to the right size, making the job an easy one. The living room had built-in seating which was covered in the same orange and brown 1 ½” shag carpet as was on the floor, but was well padded for comfort. The three bedrooms and the loft were also carpeted in this stylish fashion. The loft was wall to wall sleeping bags most of the time.
The kitchen had a cooking range that seemed like a big sister to the Easy-Bake Oven. It was the littlest thing I had ever seen. We could barely fit a cake pan in the oven, and forget about trying to put two frying pans on the stove-top at the same time. We burned the lovely orange Formica back-splash with a frying pan one morning, and from then on, double frying pans on the stove were a thing of the past.
Dad was very clever at making tables, and to accommodate all the children in our two families, he got an old chrome table, removed the top, and built a new top that fit our bench seating area perfectly. We could then pull the table out for cleaning, which we did an awful lot of.
Being in central Utah, the cabin property naturally had a lot of sagebrush on it. Sagebrush is one of those“undesirable” plants on my mom’s hit list. Aunt Karma had a similar dislike of them. After discovering a tick on one of us (at the nightly bed-time inspection ritual), she and my mom decided that that sagebrush bushes had to go (as if their unsightly appearance wasn't enough of a reason). We kids knew that meant we would be put to work again, which we were not looking forward to. We tried every argument we could come up with to get out of the job, but they would not be swayed. The entire summer, while the men worked on completing the interior of the cabin, my siblings, cousins and I cut and hacked away at sagebrush plants. The entire
meadow area in front of the cabin was to be cleared of the offensive bushes, and each time one was cleared away, it was hauled to the middle of the clearing, there to await the winter-time bonfire the adults had planned for it. We were beyond being good sports about this work, and grumbled constantly. We tried everything to get out of it, including volunteering for whatever work the men could find for us indoors, but to no avail. Our mothers can be very single-minded when they wanted to be.
The pile was more than nine feet tall, and about twenty feet across, when the last plant was thrown to the top of it. Some of its bulk was made up of dead limbs and fallen trees that the women had wanted removed from the “yard” around the cabin site. Incredibly, my mother and her sister were not through taming the forest yet. They wanted the lower branches and twigs removed from the trees, to improve the view from the windows. They wanted all the loose twigs on the ground near the cabin gathered up and removed. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we actually swept the dirt to get them all. We couldn’t believe it! It’s hard to fathom, but it’s true. All the refuse from this final cleaning was added to the pile awaiting cremation in the meadow. We were excited about the prospect of watching the enormous bonfire that would result when it was burned to the ground.
The adults waited for the snow to get good and deep before they snow-shoed in again. My dad has an intense respect for fire, and didn’t want to run any risks by having a bunch of marshmallow-toting, stick-wielding urchins around. We were banned from the festivities. We felt cheated at not being able to take in the sight after all our hard work, but dad’s word was law, and we didn’t argue. Everything went well, and the following spring the adults threw seeds of all kinds of out into the meadow. A few months later, and in every summer to come, we had an incomparable view of the meadow in full bloom. It was always with a sense of pride and accomplishment that I viewed that meadow, knowing how we had transformed the landscape into a beautiful and inviting place. We still thought our mothers were crazy, but we couldn’t argue with the results.
The surreal quality of that meadow and forest has never left me. It became a place of adventure when I was in my teens. When boys became important to me, the forest gave me a place to meditate and consider life. This was the place where I learned to enjoy quiet solitude, to savor my solitude. As I got older it became a retreat from the world – a place I could be alone to find peace. I have a physical longing for the cabin and its tranquil setting, but it is out of reach now, sold years ago. I considered it my own little piece of paradise. I treasure the memory of the times spent there, and am grateful to my parents for letting me help build it, making my bond even stronger than it would have been otherwise.
My husband and I occasionally go back just to look at the land. I don’t linger because it is someone else’s property now, but not far from the cabin there is a tree with my name carved into its bark. Below my name are the names of each boy I fell in love with. I carved my husband’s name in it last. It was a tree my mother would approve of.