W. Jim Cortese

John Muir Climbs a Tree and Other Tree Tales

An Anthology of Tree Stories

The connection between people and trees runs deeper than we think.

Climbing trees, sitting under and in trees, walking in the woods, hiding things in hollow trees, camping in the woods, planting trees, growing trees, collecting nuts and seeds of trees; these are some of our combined mutual tree experiences. When I was a youngster, I could and did climb every tree in my Castle, Greenmount, and Tutwiler Avenue neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee; except one. It was a very large straight tulip poplar. I could never figure out how to get up into it. It was very tall, seventy-five to eighty feet and thirty to forty inches in diameter. The first branch was about thirty-five feet up.

A Message From Jim

have spent most of my life around trees. For more than fifty years, I worked as an arborist, studying them, caring for them, and learning from them. But somewhere along the way, I realized that what stayed with people was not just
the science or the work. It was the stories. The memories. The moments tied to a tree that meant something to them. If you give someone a few minutes and ask about a tree, almost everyone has something to say. They remember climbing one as a kid. Falling out of one. Sitting under one when they needed a little quiet. Those memories come back quickly, and they come back strong. That is what led me to this book. I wanted to bring together stories that reflect how trees have been part of our lives in ways we don’t always think about. Some of these stories come from history. Some from folklore. Some from personal experience. But they all point to the same thing. Trees have always been there, marking moments, holding memories, and quietly connecting people across time. My hope is that as you read, you find yourself thinking about your own experiences. Not just the stories in the book, but the ones you already carry with you. Because in the end, this is not just a collection of stories about trees. It is about the way those trees have been part of our lives all along.