You May Be More Powerful Than You Think

Autumn isn't so fabulous a season hereabouts. On a good year, the red oaks live up to their name, as do the flame-leaf sumac, the bald cypress occasionally go out in glory, as do the golden cedar elm every few years.

But the dominant trees here are evergreen Live Oak and Cedar (technically Cedars are Junipers, but we Texans tend to latch onto something and not easily let go, despite all contrary evidence available. I'll avoid speaking of the Texas Shrub which is currently wreaking havoc on the environment, other than to just call it a Bush).

At any rate, Texas isn't exactly the best place to view the autumn leaves. But there is one tree here that's a pretty big exception to that. It's called the Big Tooth Maple. The Big Tooth is the western cousin to all those great northern and eastern maples that cause places like Vermont to have such great fall colors.

The Big Tooth is native to canyons and riversides all the way up into British Columbia. The southern terminus of its territory is about 60 miles west of here at a place called Lost Maples State Park. That pocket of Big Tooths is the most colorful place in Texas come late October. But there are also little pockets of Big Tooths all around my town of Boerne. In fact, the two tallest stood about 35' high, just off Interstate-10 at a fast-developing corner of the access road.

A sign appeared there one day saying that Boerne was going to get a Mercedes Benz dealership. The developer's name and phone number were big and bold on the sign, and every day I passed it I thought I should call that guy and tell him he has 2 of the areas biggest big tooths. "You want to save them, don't you?"

But the months went by and I always found a reason not to call. I thought if I did call, my concerns would be marginalized and this big-deal developer would shine me on, then do whatever he wanted to. Then I noticed a whole bunch of the trees had pink ribbons around them....including one of my great big big tooths. Yikes! So finally I called the guy. He had no idea that those were maples, and in fact had an environmental study which labeled them as hackberry trees. I don't want to be seen as a tree snob, but the bizarre-barked opportunistic hackberries are not the best Texas has to offer.

I was pretty amazed that whoever did the environmental study didn't know the difference between the two, but he didn't. The developer said he would check out the trees the next day. When I called back he reported that the distinctive maple-styled leaf convinced him--he had big tooth maples on his property, and he was going to keep them. "I'm gonna lose a couple of parking spaces, but I'd hate to take those trees down."

So the lesson here is this: it might just be that despite everything you do, the worst comes to pass. But it might not. And know this: if you do nothing, that's what you'll get: nothing. So, do something! Two simple phone calls saved this town's 2 biggest big tooth maples. Who knows what you can do in your town if you just try!