The old magnolia

David Shelnutt can still picture the old magnolia tree every time he looks across Hunt Road in Houston County.

He grew up with that tree, and now it’s gone.

His grandparents, George Riley Hunt and Lila Hunt, used to tell him the tree dated back to the 1870s, just after the Civil War. His ancestors had come to the Houston Lake Road area following the war. And, legend has it, an uncle found the magnolia sapling in a nearby swamp and brought it home in his back pocket.

“You could always smell those flowers from a good distance away,’’ David said. “My brothers and I would climb the tree.’’

David had a motorcycle accident when he was 14 and was paralyzed from the chest down. He was in a coma for 28 days. He is now 48 years old.

The tree was at least 100 feet in diameter and about 70 feet tall, he said, so it was as big around as it was tall.

“Tourists used to stop and take pictures and admire it,’’ he said.

In the spring of 1999, lightning hit the tree and left a wide gash in its back side. The tree started to die slowly, and it eventually had to be cut down.

It was a sad day for David when they dug it up by the roots and pushed it over.

This is a story he wrote about the tree.

"Boy, I sure hope this fellow doesn’t break me apart anymore than he has already, digging me up out of the ground, pulling at my roots the way he did. I wonder why he dug me up in the first place? I was happy, not bothering anyone or anything! Besides, that spot in the ground was my home, that was where I sprung my roots from the seed that blew in with the wind!" said the young sapling. "Oh, now I think I know why he dug me up, and I think I know what he plans to do with me. I see from his back pocket, he’s going to transplant me into his front yard! Great! Now I’ll have to re-adapt to new surroundings and change my rooting system to get used to this new soil. "

"And that’s the way things were for me about the time the Civil War ended. I was to become a mighty magnolia as time passed into the next century, becoming a landmark for travelers and locals alike. I can just hear the land-owners where I had to re-establish my residence, saying, ‘...just go down our road until you see a large magnolia in our front yard, with limbs riding on the ground, some reaching way up into the sky. If you come during the late spring into summer, as late as the 4th of July, you can use your nose to find our house, too! The fragrant smell of those big white flowers a magnolia puts out carries for a long way, miles if the wind is blowing toward you’," the young magnolia recalled.

"Now, when it comes to the size and type of my leaves," the magnolia thought, "I am proud to be different. My leaves are of the evergreen variety, staying green and with me year round, except for the ones that get old and brown. I get rid of them, more during the autumn season than other parts of the year. There’s a pretty large number that get old and die that I get shed of, too. I can picture people raking up my dead leaves into piles all around my trunk. I mean big piles! I remember them being gathered into baskets and being hauled away in a wagon with wooden-spoked wheels.

"Yes, it’s too bad that lightening bolt had to hit me at the start of the 21st century during that ferocious thunderstorm. I know that I had lost several branches in snow and ice storms during winter months all my life, but all it took was that one lousy streak of lightening to do me in. I know I didn’t just ‘die’ all at once, but my sap gradually stopped flowing to my limbs and I started looking sick with leaves getting thinner and thinner. After I started looking like I would never recover, the new owner of the land decided it was about time to cut me down. Now the land is free for more growth to begin."