The Sassafras Hotel

   This tall straight timber wore its’ deeply furrowed bark well, like a regal cloak bathed in experience. Topped with the familiar triad of green leaves, it stood handsome in its uncommon deportment.

   It stood for years in a tiny grove above the drive and slightly down from our summer gathering place, a bosky wood near our home. As it grew unnoticed over time, near yet away from our lives, it became something quite essential to the feathered wildlife in our midst. In some ways it stood as a reminder of the ultimate act of unselfish giving, of being a part of something greater than yourself.

   Quietly it took root in the sandy, rocky soil of our backyard, in the residue tailing of an abandoned gravel quarry. This was one of the unique Sassafras trees which dotted the untamed landscape I had purchased decades earlier. “Fence posts”, was the near universal exclamation imparted to me by surveyors and family alike, “sassafras and locust make great fence posts”, they would say. My mind wondered briefly as I imagined pioneers opening up the Ohio country and building lines of fences with trees like mine. “And tea, ever have sassafras tea?”, one member of the family asked. “Nope, never”, I replied. To this day it remains one of my long-eluded experiences in life.

   Tea, and fence posts aside, as this one particular sassafras tree matured along with our family it became a prized piece of avian real estate for countless woodpeckers – not that I ever considered counting them. Seemingly half-dead, the tree became a sturdy shelter from predators and nature alike. While the delicate root system continued to delivered nutrition, and sunlight warmed the veiny surface of its leaves, woodpeckers went about their noisy work. Carving crevices into its timbered skin with their rapid- fire tool-like beaks stabbing at the bark. The result provides both food and shelter in a hallowed-out tree.

   This drumming assault took place over, and over on the passive tree length which in the end showed acceptance with dignity. For now, the tall growth became more than another tree in the grove. It was the vehicle for sustenance and a provider of shelter. A place to call home for a season and maybe more. Now riddled with nonfatal wounds the sassafras began to resemble a tower of lodging, a destination for the feather commuter. Up and up the pockets of safety could be seen drilled into the bark, offering a resting place - a humble window from which to peer upon the woodlands around it.

   This was the symbiotic relationship of flora and fauna played out right before my ears in the sassafras hotel. As it turns out as with all animal life, those sounds, their duration and wave lengths are a means of communication to like-species. I imagined my sassafras played an important role in the lifecycle of countless woodpeckers. The late winter mating season is announced to the world through the knock-knock-knock of the male bird, though both genders sound their availability in the same manner. If not for the rat-a-tat-tat sound of the woodpecker’s labor I would most likely never share notice of his creation. Now, every time I hear the mechanized echo of beak to wood, I pause and reflect on what is actually happening all around me.