If you google Big Old Tree Missouri, this is the tree that you will find memorialized on webpages and Facebook. I forget how I first found the tree back in 2002 (or was it 2001?). A friend may have taken me out there, or I might have stumbled across it while hiking various sections of the Katy Trail. However I managed that first encounter, it led to many follow-up visits because there is just something magnetic about this giant bur oak sitting in the middle of flat and open farmland. It’s like the last standing tree from an ancient forest of gigantic ancient brethren who have long since been cleared away for the sake of cattle, beans and other human-centric-things.
Not long before left Missouri for the East Coast, I ran across a news article about a grave that just appeared under the tree. The police came through and declared it a crime scene – until after they’d managed to dig up the little lap dog that had been buried there. An official apology was published, the dog was reburied and the owners of the animal were (to the best of my knowledge) left to live in anonymous peace. No doubt, that dog enjoyed visiting the tree just as much as I did. Maybe more.
(C) Adora Myers 2014