I said there was no evidence
That we had ever lived
On Coltrane Mill Road
Well, that's not exactly true
Because I did find some
I just didn't realize it at the time
When Kodi and I were there
To scatter my father's ashes
As I mentioned previously
When we walked back up the hill
I tried to recall where the house used to be
The area looks so different that
I couldn't tell where it might have been
But there was a certain tree
That did catch my eye
It had burgundy leaves with a darker trunk
I didn't think too much about it at the time
Then I started writing the poem
Later on that Friday night
And finished it up Saturday morning
Once I was back at work on Monday
I remembered that I had found
Some old aerials of that area
On the database a few years ago
So, I did a search on Coltrane Mill
And sure enough I found the image
I had saved back in 2004
On my computer's hard drive
The color aerial was from 2002
Which was well before
Any road construction had occurred
And all the landmarks were still there
Our house, Dad's shed, the old mill
The dam and the one-lane bridge
As I zoomed in on the image
I saw a dark red blob in front of the house
That's when it hit me, I remembered
That my father had planted a crab apple tree
In the front yard just to the right of the front porch
That had to be the tree I saw on Friday
I just failed to recognize it
Because it was so much bigger
Than I'd ever seen it before
I even went online to prove to myself
There are some varieties of
Crab apple trees that are dark red
And I found one called "Prairie Fire"
The description fit perfectly
The tree my dad had planted
Some twenty-seven years ago
I'm not sure just why finding proof
No matter how minor it might have been
Was that reassuring
But finding something familiar
In those unfamiliar surroundings
Where everything I once knew
Is now gone
Somehow lessened the pain of that loss
And gave me comfort
If only just a bit
4.28.08
Now that I think about it, the day that Kodi and I were there, I do remember thinking that red tree looked very out of place there among the tall scraggly pines. Even though it may have stuck out like a sore thumb, it wasn't enough to jog my memory of the crab apple tree until I saw it on the old aerial image at work.
I guess sometimes my job isn't so bad after all, occasionally it does have its perks. And I thought it was also very cool that the evidence I found was because of something my dad had done. Despite the fact that everything else is gone, one thing remains, one living thing remains. I'm glad it's a tree and I hope it lives for a very long time.
I've since found later aerials from before I went to scatter my father's ashes, and it's clear from the images that whatever I saw that day was not the tree my father planted. It looks like the tree was removed at the same time the house was. But you know what? I still like the sentiment of the poem, and thinking the tree was still there did comfort me at the time, so I'm leaving it up, even if it's not exactly accurate.
I've included the aerials I found below so you can see what the area looked like both before and after the construction of the Randleman Dam miles downstream, which caused the water to back up and form the new Randleman Lake.
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Coltrane Mill area in 2002, prior to construction. The red border is the property boundary of what was my parents' 5.5 acre lot.
Here's a closeup of my parents' house and surrounding area. You can see the red blob of the crab apple tree in front of the house.
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Full-size Image 4959 x 3170 (5.5MB)
Coltrane Mill area in 2007, after construction was completed. You can see how the whole area has been flooded, with more than half of my parents' property under water.
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Full-size Image 4959 x 3170 (4.8MB)
Coltrane Mill area in 2010. Randleman Lake is full now, leaving almost nothing of my parents' original lot.
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