It all began the day I decided to volunteer my time in clearing away some brush on an easement near Coldwater Canyon and Mulholland Drive. After the first January rains, the soil was perfect for raking and pulling weeds. So filling my lungs with the brisk, invigorating air, up I went with my trusty rake, garden gloves and a good supply of empty boxes. Working my way down the easement, I came to an old cypress tree that had been struck by lightning. All the greenery was gone and what was left standing looked just like an old, dead tree, yet, there was a certain majesty about the way its branches jutted out from the trunk.

Raking the soil, I unearthed a surprising number of old glass bottles, which had been tossed out from passing cars. As I passed the old cypress, I would stick bottles up on the branches to get them out of the way, intending to collect them later in a box for recycling.

One morning, as I looked up from weeding, I noticed how glorious the sun shone through the colored glass bottles. Now, unearthing an old, dirty bottle became as exciting as the times my family went on rock hunting trips, digging for jasper, opal, agate, quartz and other semi-precious stones. Once a rockhound, now I was a bottlehound, collecting brilliant jewels for the neck and arms of a lonely, barren tree, just waiting to be adorned. I was fashioning a "Bottle Tree" from surrounding trash that would light up on any sunny day during any season of the year.

There was much more to decorating a tree than just planting a bottle up on a limb. Colors needed to be evenly scattered and spaced. Then there was the matter of getting some of the bottles on higher branches. I resorted to using a ladder, then finally, a long yucca pole. This became handy in raising up a glass fish decanter and homemade glass lantern with a yellow light bulb. Raiding my garage and medicine cabinet, I discovered many other different kinds of smaller bottles. What a beautiful cobalt blue there is in those old Vicks jars! What fun it was devising all kinds of colored glass ornaments for the old cypress.

Step by step, as each problem emerged, a challenge was presented and the problem was solved. Working with the tree became an ongoing, joyful experience. One day, three people who were out hiking, stopped by to talk. We decided that everyone needed a problem-solving tree of some sort on which to work and achieve that wonderful sense of self-satisfaction, which comes as a reward for such struggles.

One day, I was back at the tree, up on a ladder, reaching with my yucca pole to place a broken bottle up on one of the higher branches. A man and woman pulled their car to a stop and came over to the tree to say hello. They had noticed me working and wanted to let me know how much they liked with what I was doing with the tree. "You wouldn't happen to have a camera in your car?" I asked. Wouldn't you know, they did have an instamatic camera in their trunk!

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What a warm, friendly gesture - and such nice people. After taking some pictures, they drove away, saying goodbye as a stream of bikers rode by. One of the bikers raised his fist and yelled, "What a funky tree!" In this way, I met many interesting people while working on the tree - joggers, neighbors, Tree People. About two weeks later, Janet drove by with her little girl and introduced her to me, bringing me the photos. I had fun and the memory will linger on.

Vandals have now pilfered the tree. Gone is my brother's guitar bottle, the wind chime, hanging fish decanter and several other unique, pretty bottles. A thing of beauty may not be a joy forever if boys with rocks and itchy fingers, heavy winds, lightning or just plain weathering and aging overtake the old cypress. I ask myself, "Why worry about an old tree and a mess of old bottles?" After all, my main intention was to just clear the land. Decorating the tree was only an afterthought - something that snowballed into an endless, far-flung activity.

As I write this, I would like to think that I have made a "tribute to a tree," one in which its prime had given shade, beauty and cleaner air to both man and animal alike. Now, though devoid of its greenery, perhaps the old cypress can retain a few of its glowing gems.

Copyright © 2003 Mary L. Ports