Roots and branches

Fall’s cool breath blew across the mighty oak. Its colorful leaves now covered the Hill’s sacred ground with a warm, brown blanket.  Jimmy Barnfield listened as his steps crunched toward the oak.  Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again. But Jimmy had. He looked around at a place he had not seen in so many years.

He had walked (actually practically ran) across the graduation stage that May and hadn’t looked back. The future was where he wanted to be.  And he pursued it like a beagle chasing a hare.

He came to the giant oak and paused.  It was so large that he couldn’t wrap his arms around its massive trunk. And it had added 25 rings since he had last seen it. But like him, it was still around (and a little bigger than before.)  He looked up at its massive branches, each reaching toward the sky.   Those limbs made the oak the most impressive tree on campus. Those limbs made it famous.  When he was in college, he wanted to be like that oak — Reaching for the stars.

Jimmy sat under the giant oak’s branches like he had so many years ago and looked at the brick buildings surrounding it.  In those buildings he had gained the knowledge that had helped him build an empire. Now had come back to college. He had come back home. He had returned to his roots.

For 25 years, Jimmy Barnfield’s career had shot upward like the giant oaks’ massive branches. But it was at that moment that he realized what truly created his success: The deep roots that held him steady through the storms. The deep roots that nourished him as he reached skyward. The deep roots that kept him firmly anchored to this earth.  He realized that without the roots, the mighty oak and its impressive branches would topple over.

He got up, dusted off his butt and saw the initials JB carved into the oak’s trunk. So many years ago he had left his mark on the oak.  Today, it had left its mark on him.

Jimmy Barnsfeld walked down the Hill, met his wife and his son and headed to the football game. He turned around one more time, looked at the old oak and smiled.  “Sorry Tom”, he thought,” you can come home again.”