As an arborist I climbed and hand pruned an oak tree in 1993 that was brought to Canada as a gift from Queen Victoria in the late 1800’s. This was 10 years before I eventually met my current wife. The crazy thing is that tree is still now a centrepiece of the landscape at the lakeside resort that has sprung up around it, and my father in law of 20 years is now a strata councillor living at that very resort, and currently engaging the services of the same tree company I worked for over 30 years ago, to prune the same tree. In that time, I’ve been through 2/3 of my career across 6 different industries, had days of glory and days of despair, lived in 35 different places, nearly died a couple of times, been married twice, and been blessed with kids. And to that tree, only a handful of days have passed. As a side note, my buddy Brent and I did a Ponderosa Pine takedown a couple of miles away from that site, at a winery that was expanding their facilities. The tree was only about 16 inches in diameter at the stump, and growing out of pure rock. We counted the tiny growth rings on the stump and learned that that tree began its life not long after Columbus reached America. We are but a blip in geological time.