Free Sweetgum Trees

Three years ago, my husband and I helped form a local affiliate of Keep Georgia Beautiful in our small, Northwest Georgia community. Our organization helps reduction, recyclingefforts, community beautification projects. We sponsored a tree giveaway on Saturday, and I rose early and drove to the help give out free trees.

“Amber, we’ve this table,” our lead “You’ll be giving sweetgum trees this I had hoped to dogwood, pecan, or river — trees that everyone wants. I knew that sweetgums would be a challenging hid my disappointment and took my position behind the table. We have sweetgum trees in the woods behind our house. They are magnificent trees that grow to 70 or 80 feet high in their lifetimes and produce expansive shade in the summertime. In the fall, their star-shaped leaves turn a lovely gold-orange-red color before falling to the ground.

But they are also the trees that drop those spiky brown balls that are just a bit smaller than a golf ball. If you’ve ever stepped on one with your bare feet, I doubt you’ve forgotten the agony — the agony of da’ feet. It’s akin to stepping on a Lego. So many gum balls fall underneath oneofour treesthatwhen I am hiking downhill on the trail through our woods, I often hit a patch of newly-fallen t bll d swee – gum balls and lose my balance and control as if I’m wearing roller skates.

I pick one up, and my mind flashes back to my childhood, a time when I thought sweetgum balls were of the devil. I feel the sting of being hit in the back with a spiky ball projected from the rubbery grips of my brother’s slingshot. Ouch! Sweetgum balls left a mark. Thank God my brother never hit me in the eye with one.

So, I am quite familiar with sweetgum trees. They are majestic creations, but they come with baggage. But don’t we all?

At 9 a.m. Saturday morning, our lead volunteer picked up her megaphone and welcomed folks to the annual tree giveaway. Minutes later, 250 people walked table to table, looking that would grow well in their One-by-one, they’d stop my table and I’d greet them warmly with a smile and an upbeat, “Hey! How are you today?” guests would smile back at me down at the saplings I had on my table. I’ve got sweetgum trees this morning, and I can give you two or three,” I said. In the blink of an eye, their demeanor would change. Some suddenly if they were going to vomit of my table. Others grabbed children and raced away as if I horrible, contagious disease. just put their hand up in a “stop” gesture and yelled, “No!” at me — not “No thank you,” or “I think I’ll pass,” just a loud, resounding, “No!”

I felt like a little girl at a bake continued from page

sale who can’t sell the cake she spent all night baking and icing, except this was worse. I wasn’t selling anything. The sweetgum trees were free, and I couldn’t even give mine away.

I decided to turn on the charm offensive and exercise my talents as a salesperson.

“Hey, you need one or two of these sweetgum trees in your yard. They produce a lot of shade and are stunning in the autumn,” I said to the next round of passersby, and instead of asking if they wanted one, I just handed them a sapling with good roots as they rushed by. That tactic worked a few times until a man took one and said, “Is this the tree that drops those annoying balls — the ones that hurt when you step on them?” I can not tell a lie.

“Yes,” I said with a big smile. “Stepping on those balls really reminds you how great it is to be alive, doesn’t it? Good luck planting your tree.”

He grimaced, set the rooty twig back down on my table and stormed away.

At the end of the day, our volunteers had distributed over 3,000 free trees. Of those, I had given out a mere 25 sweetgum saplings. The experience made me feel like a failure. “Do you mind taking the leftover sweetgum trees to your house and keeping them alive until our April recycling event?” our lead volunteer asked me after everyone left on Saturday. “You can give them to folks who come to recycle that day.” I put them in my car and headed home. Yes, I will keep them alive, but someone else is going to have to push them off on people in April. I can’t handle the disappointment.