Honoring a tree

Honoring A Tree

David Vannier

On May 8^th, 2013, I received a call from Jim Laflin asking me to bring my chainsaw to his church: the United Methodist Church in Campbell, California. A branch had broken off and fallen from their coveted Silver Maple tree. The tree was roughly 65 years old, and served as a centerpiece in the court yard. It was a beautiful tree, providing shade for the outdoor gatherings.

I gathered up the saw and various tools required, hopped in the car, and drove to the church. While I had seen the tree a few times, I really hadn’t realized how large the fallen branch would be until I got there. The branch was estimated to have weighed roughly 1 ton. The tree’s caretaker must have had someone watching out for him, as he was just missed by the falling branch which took the rain gutter off the side of the building and broke the light pole. A few seconds earlier, it would have done serious damage, possibly killing him.>

There’s a Men’s club that volunteers every Wednesday, and they were already hard at work to clean up in preparation for the funeral that was going to be held at the church on Thursday. We started cutting the branch up so that it could be hauled off, with a few of the Men’s club members working away with smaller saws cutting up firewood size pieces, while I cut the larger pieces. We ended up with two pickup loads of firewood (probably should have been three but we always push it) and two trailer loads of turning blocks.

On one of my many breaks, I decided to take a closer look at the tree. My past experience with Silver Maple was that it was generally pretty white, but spalted easily, creating some really nice turnings. This wood, however, had a dark center, with very little sap wood. There was some staining on the trunk, which I hadn’t thought much about originally, but as we examined the gaping hole left by the branch in the side of the tree I started having second thoughts. I broke off a piece of bark, and stuck it into the trunk, proceeding to push it in over 12”! There was enough rot in the tree (and especially in the fallen branch) that it would have been in danger of dropping more branches on anyone sitting underneath. Not only was the caretaker lucky, but everyone who had been under this tree had been.

The church then taped off the area to keep people away, and applied for an emergency permit to remove the tree. A tree company came in and took the tree down, spending two days cutting it down, forced to go slow and lower the branch pieces rather than simply dropping them. We hauled off another pickup load of firewood and three trailer loads of turning wood. During this process, there was a steady stream of church members, all saying goodbye to the tree and expressing how much they were going to miss it.

As is always true, unexpected expenses provide a hardship. The church did not have the budget for the removal or the replacement. Jim and I decided to make an offer to turn pieces of the wood which could then be sold to church members to raise money. Thanks to several members of the West Bay Woodturners club, we just completed this phase of the story, and on June 1^st, 2014 the church sold off the turnings. The sale included pens, magnifying glasses, key chains, lanterns, and bowls, most of which went for more than the asking price. The sale raised just over $5000, which will easily cover the expenses, thanks to the turners and the church members for their generosity.

Featured: Jim Laflin and fellow Janine Payton.

Thanks to Starry Chen, Gene Frantz, Ed Howe, Glenn Krug, Dennis Lillis, Jim Laflin, and David Vannier for the donated turnings.

Beautiful Grain & Colors. But LOTS of opportunities to fill cracks!

The church is turning 125 this year. To commemorate this, Jim turned a segmented center piece to hold flowers on the altar. It consists of nearly 125 pieces of wood, and has the Methodist logo burned into the bottom, with the red flame filled in. It will be presented to the church on June 8^th at a special ceremony.

A special and unexpected pleasure was the poster which Jim Laflin’s granddaughter Heather, made for us, showing nice work from all the generations by taking the pictures and putting them together.

This isn’t the end of the story. The turnings will live on, and remind their new owners of what they once had. The money will pay for the costs and the new tree will hopefully become a new focal point for future generations.