How do you offer someone a living gift that is 28 feet tall and probably weighs more 2,000 pounds? And if they accept the gift, how do you tell them they have kill it and drag the carcass away?
That’s what I want to do, crazy as it sounds.
My choices are either Hanover, N.H., New Haven, Conn., or Dartmouth College. But, as they say, who ya gonna call? The Hanover town manager? The New Haven mayor’s office? The Hanover Selectboard? New Haven’s Board of Alders? Or maybe the president of Dartmouth College, the development office or the public relations office?
I have the feeling they’d all think I was a nut.
But, really, I’m not. I’m the proud father of a 28-foot blue spruce tree, which I planted as a sapling in my Hartford Village yard 25 years ago, watched grow to its present height and girth, and now must bid farewell.
At first, I was going to offer it to the White House, or perhaps to Rockefeller Center for its famous holiday tree (formerly known as a Christmas tree), but Google tells me that tree is usually 50 to 60 feet tall.
I’ve offered it to my birthplace, New Haven, Conn., for its Green, which is one of the oldest in the country, first laid out in 1638. My tree is much the same size as the trees on the Green of my childhood. But an initial exchange of very polite emails seems discouraging (they’ve had bad luck with blue spruce).
And Hanover referred my inquiry to Dartmouth, since Dartmouth owns the Green. So now I’m waiting to hear if I will be allowed to give my blue spruce baby to the college, free of charge, for its annual holiday tree on the Green. I’ve watched the tree there be decorated for decades, and my 28-footer is more Dartmouth’s size.
How do I know this tree is 28 feet tall? I couldn’t possibly climb to the top and drop a tape measure down to the ground. And I’m unable to figure out how to send a drone up to laser-beam measuring digits back to me.
So I did the next best thing. I set up an 8-foot A-frame ladder next to the tree and took a photograph of the two of them together. I could then make an educated guess and approximate how many 8-foot ladders, stacked one on top of another, it would take to get to the top of the tree.
I came up with three and a half ladders, or 28 feet.
As for the tree’s weight, determining that involves a great deal of measuring and estimating and some mind-bending arithmetic. Let’s just call it a ton or so.
What if no one wants my blue spruce? Well guess what? I have a dark green Norway spruce right next to old blue. It’s only about 25 feet tall, but it will do. With lights and a dusting of snow it will make a beautiful holiday statement.
But it’s the beginning of August. Why am I writing about this five months before Christmas? Because I’ve learned it takes a lot more time to cut through bureaucratic red tape than it does to string up a bunch of blinking lights. Besides, since I’m offering the tree to several places, I have to be prepared for a bit of awkwardness.
Who will be first to fell my towering gift?
The early lumberjack gets the tree.
Paul Keane lives in Hartford Village.