Enjoying the gifts that trees provide

So Saturday was Earth Day. Twenty-two years ago, give or take a year, I began a project that I dearly believed in. We moved into the Nantucket Cove Subdivision behind the Roselle and Wise roads Jewel in Schaumburg.

I looked over the picket fence at the 30- to 40-foot easement between our homes and the commercial buildings and went into the house and fired off a letter to Al Larson, who I'd met as a volunteer at Spring Valley Nature Sanctuary (and is now the Schaumburg village president). Copies to Jewel and the property management company. Somewhere I'm sure I still have Al's response.

With the approval of the parties involved, I solicited our neighbors for a "start-up fund" to put in the first row of Norway spruces that will one day match the grandeur of the row of pines along the access road to the Merkle Cabin at Spring Valley.

Almost all of the neighbors contributed. Some are gone. Some of them, so gracious in their gift, have now passed on.

I dug the holes, picked up the trees, modified the soil with sand and peat and watered the trees in summers of drought. Some died. Some I replaced. Some the plaza property management firm replaced.

I tried to teach my kids the importance of the trees. They'd help clean the air. They'd cool the earth with their shade.

They'd increase the value of each and every house that backed up to them as they began to screen the trash bins, trucks and other unsightly commercial objects we dearly depend on but prefer not to have in "our backyard."

They'd give homes to the songbirds that cheer our early morning hours and add color to our lives.

But most importantly, they provide us with the oxygen we need to live as they consume great volumes of carbon dioxide.

Back then we celebrated Earth Day. We didn't become aware of global warming until Al Gore started beating that drum. But it made what Al Larson called "common sense."

Why did I do it? Because like in the recent TV ad, we can beat global warming one person at a time.

So God bless our children. God bless our children's children. And God bless America this Earth Day.

Frank Kowynia

Schaumburg