Deep Roots
Stories That Really Matter
Curt Iles
Published by Kyle Johnston at
Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Curt Iles
To order copies or contact the author:
Creekbank Stories
PO Box 332
Dry Creek, LA 70637
Toll free 1.866.520.1947
For corrections, input, and suggestions, email us at curtiles@aol.com
www.creekbank.net.
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Curt is represented by Terry Burns of Hartline Agency.
Titles by the author:
Deep Roots
A Good Place
The Wayfaring Stranger
The Mockingbird’s Song
Hearts across the Water
Wind in the Pines
The Old House
Stories from the Creekbank
Available on audio CD:
Hearts across the Water
Wind in the Pines
Front Porch Stories
Acknowledgements
This book is a result of the encouragement of so many folks. At the risk of omitting names, I’d like to several who played key roles in bringing Deep Roots to print.
First, I thank my wife DeDe for her life-long support, love, and commitment.
My assistant Judi Reeves has been a breath of fresh air with her hard work, humor, and careful eye.
Sherry Perkins, Joy Reeves Pitre, Julie Johnson, Colleen Glaser,were great help on preparing this manuscript.
Marty Bee has once again proven himself a master with the beautiful interior design. Thanks guys for being my partners!
Chad Smith of The Touch Studios is a creative and talented artist who designed the cover of Deep Roots. His mother, Ruby Weldon Smith, gave the idea for the back cover design.
I’m grateful for the encouragement of John van Diest who prodded me to prepare this book.
Dedication
For my mother,
Mary Iles
“Curt, you can’t have too many friends.”
-My mom’s lifelong advice.
Table of Contents
1. Deep Roots
2. The Landmark Pine
3. Burned, yet Blessed, by the Fire
4. The Door
5. The Pine Knot Pile
6. Tough or Hard
7. Branded
8. The Evening Holler
9. Across the Pea Patch
10. A Pair for Life
11. Leaning Trees
12. Trespassing
13. Measure Twice, Cut Once
14. The Friendship Lane
15. You’re the Man
16. Brother Hodges’ Best Sermon
17. Whippoorwill Day
18. The Miller Oak
19. A Prophet has no Honor
20. The Thirty-Year-Old Photo
21. The Ripple Effect
22. Keep on Playing
23. A Bright Light
24. Belum
25. The Mockingbird’s Song
26. Perfect Love
27. The Sign Phantom
28. A Father’s Love
29. Best Seat in the House
30. Christmas Jelly
31. Two Men—One Word
32. Henry
33. A Homeless Lady
34. Suzie Q
35. Stuck on Devil’s Tower
36. 92 Dry Holes
37. Perseverance! By Mary V. Iles Hudson
38. Running Through the Lobby
39. “Le Petit Baton Rouge”
40. Wings and Roots
41. Dead End
Epilogue: Why I Write
Deep Roots
Stories about the things that really matter.
Come to the woods, for here is rest.
-John Muir
The things that matter aren’t really things.
It’s because the things that matter in life are often unseen. They cannot be measured or placed in a bank account. Sometimes, they’re even difficult to describe.
Like the deep roots of the tall trees of my beloved Louisiana woods, the things that matter are often deep and unseen. Yet, they give a lasting silent strength.
I recall a long ago trip to one of my favorite trees while hunting with my youngest son Terry. Leaving our deer stand in Crooked Bayou swamp, we made a detour to this special spot.
We arrived at a huge beech tree, surrounded by fallen dead limbs. This old tree was dying, as evidenced by its bare trunk and remaining leafless limbs. This was my first visit this hunting season, and I was shocked at how the tree deteriorated. I wondered if this was the mighty tree’s final year.
I pointed out to Terry what made this beech tree so special. Carved about four feet high was:
F.I.
L.I.
10/9/21
“F.I.” was my great-grandfather, Frank Iles, and “L.I.” was my grandfather, Lloyd Iles. On a hunting trip of their own over seventy-six years ago, they had carved their initials on this tree. On that Friday in 1921, my great-grandfather was thirty-six, his son was ten, and the tree was already old. It was the queen of the swamp.
However, soon it will be gone.
On this day, my son and I were close to the respective ages of my beloved ancestors. A sense of deep roots overwhelmed me. It was a special moment with my son as we stood on land that had been in our family since the nineteenth century.
Another emotion also overwhelmed me—the feeling of how quickly life comes and goes. Each time I’ve stood at this tree, I’m reminded of the certainty of life passing right before our eyes.
Yes, time passes by so quickly—and life’s limbs fall to the ground as sure as the cold November wind blows. What precious gifts we have been given—this gift of life, the wonderful gift of family—both past and present, and for me, the gift of an old beech tree deep in Crooked Bayou swamp. A family tree with deep roots.
A reminder of the things that really matter.
So come into the woods with me for these stories.
Stories of family, faith, and friends.
Stories from the woods, as well as stories of the woods.
Stories of the deep-rooted things that really matter.
Curt Iles
Dry Creek, Louisiana
November 2010
The Landmark Pine
It’s the lone pine tree featured on the front cover of this book. It’s a landmark tree, a special type of tree tied to the history of our area.
The early pioneers used these trees as waypoints for wagon trains and travelers.
The landmark pine on the cover of Deep Roots is along the Longville-Dry Creek Road, commonly called the “Gravel Pit Road.” It’s a winding eleven-mile track that has only recently been paved.
I love traveling this road because most of it is pine woods bisected by three creek crossings: Dry Creek (twice) and Barnes Creek. Due to the seclusion of the road, it is prime territory for spotting wild turkey and deer.
Before we drive from Dry Creek to the Landmark Tree, it’s time for a short lesson.
The early settlers in America knew about landmark trees. A good example of this is the community of Lone Tree, Iowa. It derives its name from a giant elm that grew nearby in the pioneer era; as the only tree between the Iowa and Cedar Rivers, it served as a prairie landmark. It served as defining point in that area until its death from Dutch Elm Disease in the 1960s.
In Piney Woods Louisiana, the timber clear cuts of the early twentieth century left only a few pines standing. These trees naturally became useful as landmarks for travelers as in, “The road turns left over thar just past that big pine.”
Traveling west from Dry Creek toward the Landmark Tree, you pass two of the finest preserved dogtrot houses in Louisiana: The Fanny Heard house, followed by the Mary Jane Lindsey home place.
Just south of the Lindsey home is where my first Dry Creek ancestors homesteaded in 1848. Andrew Jackson Wagnon and Nancy Fulton Wagnon traveled from Georgia to stake their claim in the No Man’s Land. They homesteaded in the edge of Dry Creek Swamp near a free-flowing spring.
A few years ago I walked the entire Gravel Pit Road. As I walked over the hill and down toward the swamp, I was overwhelmed that this was probably the same path A.J. Wagnon walked when he left for the Civil War.
He never returned, dying near Opelousas, Louisiana of Typhoid Fever. His wife Nancy lived on the homestead until her death nearly forty years later. The Wagnon descendants are scattered all over the Piney Woods.
Continuing toward the Landmark Tree, we pass the site of the one-room Mt. Moriah School. It’s where my ancestors walked to school during the nineteenth century. I have a photo of the thirty-member student body gathered in front of the one-room school. It was nicknamed the “Hen Scratch School” due to chickens scratching around the yard where the students ate their lunches.
The Landmark Tree stands on the north side of the bumpy road as we enter the secluded part of the trip. We’ll stop by it and talk more on the return trip.
After crossing Dry Creek the second time, we pass over Grave’s Gully. If you walk south along it, you’ll come to the Jayhawker graves.
Two local men, William Washington Green and Lemuel Jackson Bradford, were ambushed and murdered by jayhawkers in 1865. This spot is a reminder that our area’s nickname of “The Outlaw Strip” was well-deserved. Even now a visit to the two lone graves has an eerie feel to it.
To the north of the main road is the abandoned gravel pit. For a generation, truck after truck of gravel and pebbles were mined from the pit. I remember my father trying to get Wildlife and Fisheries to stop the gravel pit from dumping its wastewater into Dry Creek.
It was my first time to understand about conservation, stewardship, and a love of the land. Although his campaign was unsuccessful, I’ll always admire his stand.
Soon the traveler crosses over Barnes Creek, still thirty winding miles from its junction with the Calcasieu River. Looking at the creek now, it’s hard to fathom how log rafts were once floated to the sawmills on Lake Charles.
Closer to Barnes Creek’s mouth is where another branch of my family arrived in the early 1800s. Most of them are buried at one of Louisiana’s most beautiful graveyards, Lyles Cemetery between Bel and Topsy.
The Gravel Pit Road climbs out of the swamp and back into the pines as it nears the once thriving sawmill town of Longville. Long Bel Lumber from Longview, Washington operated a large mill during the cutting of the virgin pine forests that had stood for hundreds of year.
In the “cut out/clear out” philosophy of the times, all of the pines were cut. Very few landmark trees were left.
Let’s double back and stop for a talk under the Landmark Tree.
Another name for these lone trees were “seed trees.” These were trees spared during the lumbering for the purpose of providing a source of seed for re-stocking the over-cut areas.
The longleaf pine has huge pine cones which contain the small seeds that can grow into trees. Sadly, very few were left. The result was a stump-filled expanse of grassy land. My great-grandfather, Frank Iles, told of walking from Dry Creek to Reeves and being able to see for miles. He told of constantly being on the lookout for wild bulls due to the lack of trees to climb for escape.
Another name for the lone trees left behind is “witness trees.” As the original public land surveys were done in the early 1800’s, every section and quarter section were marked by nearby witness trees.
My father was a land surveyor. In seeking the corners of land parcels, he’d look for the witness trees. They normally had a large X cut into the bark with an ax. I’ve seen Daddy dig futilely for the stump of a long gone witness tree needed to clearly mark a corner.
###
There’s an additional meaning of witness tree. It refers to an old tree that witnessed a historic event and still stands as a silent testimony.
The Gettysburg Battlefield is a hallowed spot for all Americans. On Culp’s Hill where the Union fortifications helped ensure victory over the confederates stands a witness tree.
It was there during the fierce three days of battle in July 1863. A few weeks later, famed photographer Matthew Brady took a photograph showing two of his assistants sitting on a rock by the tree.
That tree still stands today as a witness to how our nation’s history hung in the balance. It’s a witness tree of history. Our American history.
My research led to other stories of landmark and witness trees. In cases offamous trees toppling in a storm or from old age, it was reported as if a death in the family had occurred. The passing of a landmark tree calls for mourning.
I wonder if I’ll see the demise of the Gravel Pit Road tree. It looks pretty sturdy. I hope it outlasts me. I also hope to one day take a great-grandchild to see the tree.
It’s rode out several strong hurricanes in 1918, 1957, and 2005. In the photo, you can see where it lost a limb on the left during Rita.
It’s a large landmark tree with strong roots. As this book went to print, my son Clint measured its diameter at 29 inches. He took out his increment bore and drilled into its core. He estimated its age at least seventy-five years, maybe more. As I examined the pencil-sized core, the sweet aroma of pine sap filled the truck cab.
It’s a worthy landmark tree, but it’s not the Louisiana Landmark Tree. That designation belongs to the twenty-eight live oaks forming the entrance to Oak Alley Plantation along the Mississippi River. They predate the 1718 founding of New Orleans and are majestic to see.
Don’t tell the folks at Oak Alley, but I wouldn’t trade a hundred live oaks for the Dry Creek Landmark Pine. It marks the area that I call home. That’s why I wanted it on the cover of Deep Roots.
It marks a spot. A spot that my heart calls home.
It’s also a seed tree.
During its long fruitful life, it’s provided seeds and pollen for new trees in the surrounding area. Younger trees have been grown, thinned, cut, replanted, and cut again. All that time, the landmark tree has watched in its place of honor along the old fencerow.
I guess it’s kind of like a proud grandpa or great grandpa. It’s survived the axes, crosscut saws, chain saws, and hydraulic shears of generations of Louisiana timber men.
It’s a witness tree. A reminder of the legacy of the longleaf pine that defines western Louisiana. Our economy, our culture, even our philosophy is tied to this tree.
A lone landmark pine standing proudly alone in the heart of Beauregard Parish, Louisiana.
Long may it stand.
Burned, yet Blessed, by the Fire…
“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago.
The next best time is today.”
Nothing breaks my heart like a field of burned pines. Yet that is exactly what I’m looking at driving toward the community of Reeves, Louisiana—forty acres of longleaf pines have been the victim of a forest fire.
This must have been an extremely hot fire. It completely burned the smaller trees and blackened the bark of the more mature trees. It’s sad seeing acres of pines with burnt trunks and brown straw. It appears the entire stand will need to be replanted.
These trees might look dead but they aren’t. There is an amazing story behind the burning and growth of Pinus Palustrus, the Southern Longleaf Pine. This native tree, also called the yellow pine, ruled the virgin forests from Virginia to East Texas. Because of its hardiness and adaptability in growing in shallow, sandy soils, it covered much of the acreage of the southern United States
These beautiful pines existed in vast tracts called pine savannahs, upland areas where the pines were scattered throughout grassy areas. Fire was always a reality in dry weather and after the killing frosts of winter.
The native Indians first burned the woods so they could better see game animals and lessen the chance of their enemies hiding nearby. Later, white settlers burned these same grasslands for better grazing for their cattle and sheep, as well as killing pests such as redbugs and ticks.
No matter the reason for these fires, the longleaf pines could survive the heat. In fact, fire is imperative for the early development and growth of this species.
The early stage of a longleaf pine is called the grassy stage. The tree has hardly any trunk above ground and the long green needles more nearly resemble a wild type of grass than a tree. The pine will stay in this stage indefinitely—unless a fire sweeps through.
Tremendous growth is taking place underground. The small visible tree is sending down a strong taproot, that anchors it deeply into the earth and stores energy and nutrients for its future.
During this grassy stage, the visible tree will remain dormant due to what is called Brown Spot Needle Blight. This fungus attacks the topmost growth area of the young pine, called the candle bulb.
This combination of the tall grass competing with the seedlings for sunshine and nutrients, plus the Needle Blight keeps the young tree from growing upward. The surrounding grass keeps the area moist, which is the condition the Needle Blight needs to attack the small pine’s candle bulb. The result is that the longleaf sapling will remain alive, but never grow upward.
This species will never reach its potential until a fire rushes through, killing the grass and other competing trees. Additionally, the heat of the fire kills the Brown Spot Needle Blight. The bushy longleaf pine is now freed for growth to its intended height.
I love the resilience of these trees. Looking across the tract along the Reeves Highway, blackened and charred pines stretch endlessly. In spite of their appearance, I know these burned trees are still alive.
In the succeeding weeks, I watch the field for new growth. In March, the trees begin their miracle with new green growth. Soon new healthy candle bulbs, some nearly a foot long, begin reaching upwards. Over the coming weeks and months, these thin bulbs turn into tree trunks and sprout fresh pine straw. These longleaf seedlings, once dwarfed by the grass and bushes, will never again compete for water, sunlight, or food.
Knowing about this species, I also know that this same growth is taking place underground. During the grassy stage, the underground taproot is growing strong and deep, giving it a stable foundation for its upward growth.
There’s a spiritual application from the story of the longleafs. In our lives, the fire of trials grow us into the person God wants us to be. None of us desire these times of heat and pain, but God uses them or the shaping of our taproot—the heart—for maximum growth.
We see a memorable example of this “burned yet blessed” experience in the Old Testament story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The book of Daniel tells of these three young men being thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.