RIVER CITY JOURNAL: IN CONTESTS OF WILLS, SCORE RIGHT NOW IS OAK TREE 3, ME 0

* Don't tell me trees don't have minds of their own. I've got this great big oak tree with a bad attitude.

I've been casting unpleasant looks in the direction of the big oak tree in my front yard. It's one of those oaks that hangs on to its leaves until after the city has sent around those wonderful pickup crews. Now the stubborn oak is starting to lay a thick carpet across my lawn. This is the third autumn we've been in this house, and the oak tree has had the upper hand every year.

The ash and elm and another big oak in the back are more cooperative.

They are my friends.

The balky oak is not my friend. Not right now.

I've been told, more than once, that if I'm nice to the troublemaking oak it might be more cooperative. I tried being nice to that tree once. It dropped a giant limb that landed not more than three feet from where I was standing.

I got the message.

OK. You're thinking trees don't have brains and, therefore, don't plot against folks or try to make their lives miserable.

You can believe that if you want. I happen to know there are forces we don't understand at work in plants and rocks and window frames.

If I'm not mistaken, my strong feeling that something like a vacuum cleaner may be smarter than I am is considered heresy by most Christian theologians. There's a name for it. But I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday, so I don't have what they call this particular kind of heresy on the tip of my tongue.

In my lifetime, I have confronted what I consider to be satisfactory proof that there is a God. By the same token, I've met a few spirit-filled, hard-to-start lawn mowers and feisty rake handles too.

Take the time I decided to make storm windows for our 100-year-old house in Maryville in the northwestern corner of Missouri.

I told you once about this.

Anyway, I took off the old aluminum storm windows and carefully removed the glass. Then I started making new wood frames. All the windows fit until I came to the bathroom widow overlooking the deck. When I put this frame in place, it was off. Really off. By more than half an inch on one corner.

I tried everything I could think of to get the window to fit. The window and I had quite a conversation. I used words the storm window had never heard before.

Finally, I went to the garage and looked for just the right tool. I had a choice of saws, planes and chisels. I chose a sledge hammer.

Now. Here's my question. Exactly who was I talking to during this brief encounter?

I was talking to the window, of course. I was yelling at the window because I thought it could hear me and might want to apologize to me for causing so much distress. And when it didn't, I put it out of its miserable existence.

What I have drawn from this experience is that there are spirits in window frames. They might be good spirits like in all those other frames I built that fit perfectly. Or they might be devils.

I don't know what makes my ash tree an angel and my stubborn oak an agent of Beelzebub. Maybe the oak wasn't brought up right. Maybe it lost its parents to loggers. I don't know.

If you look at this tree, it appears to be a model oak tree. Its massive, straight trunk soars to the sky, lifting branches far above the roof of the house. It provides ample shade. Its leaves are beautiful things. It is a majestic thing to look at.

But it has a mean streak. It likes to play games in the fall. If it didn't have a mind of its own, how would it know when the city crews come to take the leaves away?

I think there must be several hundred board feet of good lumber in this particular oak. I've told the tree that there are sycamores and sweet gums looking for good homes.

But the devilish oak is waiting. It's waiting until I can't stand all those leaves in the yard. It's waiting until I spend a day raking the leaves and hauling them away.

Then it will drop the rest of the leaves it has been holding on to so dearly.

You don't believe me? Come by my house. Let me introduce you to one spiteful oak tree. We'll discuss those new oak cabinets you want for your kitchen. Maybe you'd like some bookcases too. Come on over. We'll talk.

Underneath the old oak tree.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.