In most of the places you look, you won’t find anything special about the Silver Maple (I’ll provide the latin name, Acer saccharinum, for those officials of the sport). In fact, a lot of research will tell you that it’s best attribute is probably how well adaptable it is to a variety of soils. Oh, and that it’s classified as a ‘soft maple’ in the logging world.

Even Dirr passively remarks that it has “fallen into disfavor with nursery people and gardeners.”

It’s known in more aggressive production circles for week wood, hardly ever a central leader, and spacey crotch unions. Many a storm damage call for the Silver Maple. Many times you find them old and hollow and topped in town, and the epicormic growth, now itself almost a hundred years old, absolutely nightmarish to advance upward through. Hardly ever a lateral when you need it. Your throw ball will surely get snagged. Your morning will surely be ruined. Your rope angle will forever be dangerous.

There are millions of Silver Maples along the Susquehanna river, in the region of Pennsylvania that I live. There are millions and millions of them everywhere along the river and through the towns that have cultivated themselves along the river. Little Polish and Slovak and Italian towns, one after another.

I have climbed millions of Silver Maples. In fact, one of the biggest trees I have ever worked in locally has been a Silver Maple, more than five feet across at chest height, branches spreading for millions and millions of feet. And still, rather uneventful. Even this tree I rarely give much thought to, mainly because there isn’t anything super special about it. I don’t even think it’s taller than a hundred feet, so, yea.

It’s no surprise then, that when my son and I pitched our tent while camping this weekend, we found ourselves in the critical root zone of an average sized Silver Maple on the shores of the Susquehanna.

It was a hot summer night. Dusk was descending quickly and the crankiness that comes with a toddler’s exhaustion indicated that it was time for a fresh diaper and nighty night.

There is a ghostly-ness that comes after dusk, when you can just about see the first of the stars appearing in the sky. I lie there looking over at the little boy next to me, already sleeping and dreaming. I wondered briefly what he was dreaming about but then let it go at that and looked upwards again.

The outline of the crown of this particular Silver Maple loomed over our tent. We were exactly on the drip line. My neck turned quickly like an owl and I scanned the major crotch union for an acceptable angle of connection, which meant less risk and more safety for us. What if it failed in the night! No storms were predicted, and so at least we could sleep reassuringly. No visible cavities, good root flare…

Maybe I should sound the stem just to be sure…

The tree’s silhouette revealed that the sharply five-lobed leaves looked like a million little arrowheads pasted against an inky sky. I thought about the Lenni Lenape tribes that may have slept under these millions of Maples and millions of stars so many years ago with their sons and their daughters. And I wondered if they were ever curious of the risk that trees posed, I wondered if they performed aerial inspections. If so, I doubt it was under contract.

As my thoughts disintegrated into dreams, I thought about my son and myself being together, and I thought about the ghosts of the Lenape lingering on the shores of the river, rooted as deep as the maples themselves, growing sweet corn with their children and chiseling arrowheads out of round river rock, and I thought about the millions and millions of Silver Maples that those native tribes had known, and now, that I have known.

And how, even though it may not seem so, this one in particular, that my son and I fell asleep under, was just a bit more special all of a sudden.