My Father and His Bradford Pear Tree

To call my dad stubborn would be insufficient. He wasn’t merely stubborn, he was intractable. When he set his mind to something it was a guarantee that he would not budge from that position. He was, in many ways, quite different from the tree that he spent so much of his time defending. The legendary Bradford Pear tree is notoriously sensitive to the elements. It’s branches fall in the weakest of breeze, most are born barren and when they do bear fruit it’s rarely on any kind of expectation.

The Bradford Pear Tree is as unpredictable as my dad was intractable, almost willfully so if it could be said that a pear tree had a will. And yet, my dad loved that tree. It didn’t matter that it had damaged the yard, that it had dropped branches on every vehicle my father ever owned, or that it’s unruly roots destroyed his pristine driveway, when the homeowners association told my father that the tree had to come down, there was no way he was going to agree. Though he’d never tell anyone why, the tree was special to him and it would only come down when he was good and ready for that to happen.

I will never forget the summer of 1983. I was seven years old and the Bradford Pear Tree was a second home. I wasn’t allowed to climb or hang from it, but I could sit under it and the stench would overwhelm, this powerful dank odor, at once sweet and slightly foul. It had been there since the day I was born and that smell was second nature to me. I couldn’t imagine the world without that odor. In the summer, the bright white foliage of the Bradford would be beautiful for about a week before it would succumb to some calamity or another, wind, rain, a stiff breeze.

In 1983 there had been quite a storm and it left an absolute disaster of a mess. The Bradford Pear Tree still stood but many of its formerly bright white branches had been lost and sent hurtling about our neighborhood haphazardly visiting upon the lawns of our neighbors, none to welcome as visitors. The Bradford Pear Tree is an invasive species and being unpredictable, it can also cross-pollinate and ruin otherwise more fruitful types of trees. Because of this, it appeared that the HOA may have finally had the means to make my father cut the tree down and tear out the roots.

But, to think that would ever happen, was to gravely underestimate the intractable nature of my father. Not one for respecting authority under the nicest circumstances, my father was not about to respect the authority of the Homeowners Association, a group he held with more disdain than any other form of pseudo-authority. He’d been fined by the HOA when he’d first planted the Bradford Pear Tree and had for the past seven years ignored repeated requests to pay new fines related to the damages associated with the tree.

This time was different though, the HOA got a lawyer from the big city. As I sat under the Bradford Pear one day I saw what had to be the most expensive vehicle I had ever seen arrive on our street. Inside was a man wearing a suit and a gold watch so sizable that I could not help but stare. He held an intimidatingly sizable file of papers in his hand and he had a broad, charismatic confidence that matched his obvious wealth. Though he failed to regard my presence he did not miss the tree which he ordered his drive to photograph.

That’s when he caught my father’s attention. My father though intractable, was not voluble, he wasn’t a yeller. His presence spoke much louder than his voice ever had. But on this day, his voice was louder than ever.Upon seeing the man photographing his tree, he came a bit unglued, he thought for a moment that the man had been photographing me, as I sat under the tree. This misunderstanding was shortly cleared up but did little to quell my father’s all too rare open rage. When the man explained that he was a lawyer working for the HOA my father told him he could be the lawyer for God Almighty and it would not matter to my father and just like that he booted that very rich man off of his lawn, loud enough that I’m sure the entirety of the Homeowners Association could hear it.

My father was not one to be intimidated by anything, especially a well dressed rich man. He had started a business, kept it alive even while he was away fighting in Vietnam, and survived what he called ‘The Carter Days’ with a wistful disgust, a lawyer was not going to get to my father in any way. Thus, even when that lawyer won a sizable suit against us, my father was unfazed. The court could not order him to take the tree down but instead offered a compromise, take down the tree or pay a very large fine. My father responded in the only way he could, defiance.

When the fine came due, it was paid in full. In pennies. Baskets and baskets of pennies. Endless wooden baskets filled with more pennies than one would imagine would be available in a small town in Kentucky. My father was intractable but he was intractable with a sense of humor all his own. And thus, the Bradford Pear stood its ground once more, even as weather and time began to take an even more brutal toll, even as new neighbors arrived with new complaints, the tree still stood.

Until the day it didn’t stand anymore. In 1994, I left for college. And on that day, after packing me off and wishing my luck, my father did the unthinkable. He cut down the Bradford Pear Tree. He didn’t tell me or anyone else he was doing it. He just did it and went on about his life. When I returned home I was flabbergasted. The Bradford Pear was no more and with it, so many of my childhood memories and moments. I was angry and while, like my father, I was not a voluble man, I had a bone to pick.

I had every intention of confronting my dad and calling him out for finally giving in to the busybodies and the lawyers and so on. I was going to lord it over him and show him how intractable I had become over the years. That idea faded away when I finally went inside and my father met me at the door with the biggest hug we’d ever shared. My father had the biggest smile I’d ever seen, he was joyous, happy to see me. I wanted to be mad and he sensed that and he sat me down and explained to me the story of that Bradford Pear.

He’d read about The Bradford Pear in an old magazine and how beautiful it could be. He loved how the tree was so singular, fragile and strong at the same time. It’s roots were deep and invasive but it also always stood, even as branches fell away and foliage was short lived. The pears, if they ever bloomed were rich and delicious, unlike any other pear and the tree itself, it’s fall apart nature drove neighbors crazy in ways that made my dad happy, knowing that he’d made an impression on people that they would not soon forget.

He told me that he planted that Bradford Pear Tree on the day I was born and in hope that I might find inspiration beneath it. He hoped that it’s unique beauty and quirky, unpredictable nature might rub off on me. In this rare moment of intimacy, my father shed a tear, not of sadness but relief that perhaps his plan had worked and I had grown up to be as stalwart, interesting and lively as that old tree. I had. I had indeed carried those qualities into the world with me.

But why did he then cut it down? Because it had served its purpose he said. I was now fully formed in the world, a personality, a genuine article of singular humanity. It was time for me to start thinking of what I wanted from a tree or of the world. Cutting down the Bradford Pear Tree marked the end of my childhood and my move into the world and my father loved the symbolism of that. He loved what the tree had stood for, it made him feel both poetic and mischievous to place such distinct meaning into a tree.

Most of all, he loved sharing this as a secret that only he and I would ever share.