Perspective

I am amazed at how beautiful and full the Tulip Poplar bloom is this year. Funny thing is, most people NEVER notice it. The blooms are large and showy, but usually are high up in a large tree and sort of camoflaged due to all the large leaves around them. They face up and we usually see the bloom only from the bottom. A Tulip Poplar does not start blooming until it is about 25 years old, so the small trees may give the impression these trees do not bloom. Quite unassuming for a tree that is the major source of nectar in Western North Carolina for honeybees.

I guess I always noticed the Tulip Poplar because we had one in the back yard when I was a kid. I used to climb that tree, when I could sneak and do it, but dad warned me against it because it will lose its branches suddenly and without warning sometimes. Not a good tree for the back yard. Because I was always around the tree it seemed I was always noticing the blooms. From my perspective, it seemed the tree was always blooming and I must have seen it bloom a hundred times when I was a child. Funny thing is the tree only blooms once per year, unless a freeze kills the blooms like last year, and since I was born in September and the tree blooms in May, I have only seen 50 total blooms in my lifetime. I guess the bloom seemed continuous because it blooms for a month and that is a long time for a child.

Spring brings something else besides the Tulip Poplar bloom. Fishing starts getting good for bass, catfish, crappie and blue gill about the time the Tulip Poplar blooms. I remember the Tulip Poplar bloom always signaled me it was time to go fishing again. We had two ponds on the 85 acres of farmland I grew up on. One is about 3/4 of an acre and the other is about 3 acres. I loved going fishing in those ponds and would always beg my dad to take me when I was small. I enjoyed that greatly, but he was busy and it seems he could not take time to do that as often as I wanted. Still, it seems like that is one of my fondest memories of childhood. As I look back, I can only remember going fishing in the pond with him less than 5 times,by the time I was 10 I just went on my own, but from a childs perspective it seemed like we went every day. Dad was good at showing us something once and after that we just did it ourself. I guess when I put things into perspective, because dad showed us the first time, everytime after that seemed as if it were with dad because of association. We always talked about the experience with dad when we got back even if he did not go.

As a child, I did not fully appreciate the blessing of having access to the ponds and was always asking dad to take me fishing at Enka Lake. That was my favorite thing to do as a small child, going fishing at Enka Lake with my dad, but as I look back, I can only recall us doing it once. Funny thing perspective. Quality always trumps quantity and what seems is not always what is.