Be like a tree, grow slowly

"Be like a tree, grow slowly" is the phrase we put on a memorial bench in Carl Schurz park in NYC when my father passed away in 2006.  I don't know where he got this phrase, but it was one of his favorites.  I was thinking about his phrase today as I was staring in awe at a tree across the street from my house in Boulder.  It is a 60 foot Catalpa tree that is in full bloom.  Catalpa trees were unfamiliar to me before I came to Boulder, but you can't walk around Boulder and not notice them, especially this time of year when their oversized showy flowers cover the tree.  They look like they belong in a children's story (think Good trees from Sid and Marty Kroft's H.R. Pufnstuf): enormously tall in maturity, with trunks solid, thick and textured; heart shaped leaves the size of salad plates; side branches that are sometime so disproportionately small that they look cartoonish. I have fallen in love with my neighbor's specimen Catalpa tree, a tree that has been slowly growing for many decades.  When you plant trees, their true value is often not fully realized until a few generations later.  That's why planting a tree is one of the most anonymous gifts you can offer.  By the time the tree has reached its full beauty, there is often no one around to thank.