Woodpile Man
 
Treasure on Cedar Drive

When I leave my driveway I go about 50 feet before I turn left onto Cedar Drive. I can go straight too, and stay on Samsonville Road, but I usually don't. Cedar Drive is about a mile long, and merges into Queen's Highway which takes me down to Route 209. From there I can head to work or almost anywhere else. When we first moved up here from the City, Cedar Drive had no power lines and almost no houses. Now, 23 years later, power lines zigzag from curve to curve and there are a bunch of new homes, but the road has kept most of its forest and most of its beauty. Two weeks ago I was half way down Cedar Drive, heading for Queen's Highway, when I saw on my left a pretty big log balanced on one end, standing about 3 feet high. The log was about an inch from the road. If a plow hit it in a snow storm, something big would have broken.

    Every now and then you see wood by the side of the road with a "Free Wood" sign tacked to one of the pieces. When I had to have a tall hemlock, growing right by the house, cut down because it was breaking apart and was about to land on the roof and take out the electric wires, I cut up a bunch of it into 16 inch pieces and put it near the road with a sign, "Free Soft Wood," nailed to it. Now that people are using outside wood burners, softwood is useful as fuel. Someone took the pile after a day.

    There was no sign on this big log on Cedar Drive, but its position next to the road seemed to scream out, "Take Me Before I Cause an Accident!" I restrained myself. I have a lot of wood right now. I left it for someone who needed it more. I also waited for the people who lived near by to move it away from the road if they intended to use it. Even without a snowfall it was dangerous. There are no lights on Cedar Drive and at night the log was almost invisible. At about 200 pounds and standing upright, it would cause a lot of damage to anyone who banged into it.

    Still, I left it. And then it was Friday evening, the second or third since the log appeared like a topless mushroom of epic proportions. It was still light out because it is early February now. No one was behind me and I just couldn't take it any more. I pulled off the road ahead of the log and then backed up to within a foot of it. I popped the trunk open and got out of the car. I yelled out, "Hello!" towards the house in case the whole thing was a trap to lure some wood rat like me to his death. "Hello!" I yelled again, to leave no doubt in anyone's mind that I was not there to steal or rob or make off with anything that wasn't actually being given away; and there was no answer.  

     I hadn't even been sure until now if the log was hard or soft wood. I smiled when I saw it was red oak, like a parent smiles when he knows if his new baby is a boy or a girl. The parent says inside, "I don't care what it is, as long as the baby is okay." The wood rat with an indoor wood burner smiles and says, "I don't care if it's maple or oak, as long as it's hard."

    I rolled the log like a barrel to the open trunk, and then knelt to grab hold of it so I could lift it onto the edge of the trunk and then roll it the rest of the way in. I left the trunk open and drove the half mile home and unloaded the thing near the wood shed. And then I began thinking: it's too perfect to burn.  I have time to decide what to do with it now that it is in my yard.
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