Sometimes instead of a useless old object being thrown away, it can be
used to create something pretty, something that will make people smile
when they see it.
Something like a bottle tree.
When
I was a little girl visiting in Mississippi, every once in a while I’d
see an unusual sight in front of an unpainted shack out in the country.
Near the sagging front porch of the house, a dead tree would bloom with
empty glass bottles, usually cobalt blue ones, stuck onto its leafless
limbs.
I’ve read that bottle trees originated in the Congo, where
bottles were sometimes hung from trees in the hope of protecting the
occupants of the nearby dwelling from evil spirits.
The custom of
creating a bottle tree near a home was brought to the American South by
African slaves, who passed it down to their children and grandchildren.
These folks would sometimes slip empty bottles onto the trimmed
branches of a dead tree — often a crape myrtle — in their yards.
Because
the color blue supposedly attracted spirits, blue bottles were favored.
Milk of magnesia bottles were the most popular, but the little brown
bottles that snuff used to come in were also often seen.
Sometimes
instead of being stuck onto branches, two bottles were tied together,
and the rope thrown over a branch, like a pair of shoes with shoelaces
tied together thrown over a power line.
It was believed the evil
spirits would fly into the colorful bottles and be trapped there. I
hear that sometimes the owners of the home would cork the bottles after
they believed the spirits had been caught, then throw the occupied
bottles into the river.
Eudora Welty, one of my home state’s most
beloved and revered writers, used bottle trees as important symbols in
one of her stories, “ Livvie.” And during the Depression, when she did
a Southern photo series for the Works Progress Administration, Welty
included several shots of bottle trees in country yards.
During my
childhood, bottle trees were only found in the bare-dirt yards of poor
sharecroppers, but these icons of Southern culture have crossed social
and economic boundaries and can now be found gracing the landscaped
yards of large, stately homes across the South.
My closest personal
encounter with a bottle tree came several years ago, when we stopped to
visit in my little Mississippi hometown on our way to Harrison from
Florida. My dear friends Marion and Gene have a beautiful home, and one
of the prettiest yards in town. On this trip, I spotted, right next to
their driveway, among the flowerbeds and flowering shrubs, something
new since my last visit — a bright bottle tree.
It wasn’t actually
a tree, but was made of rebar welded together in the rough shape of a
tree, and each branch was tipped with a colorful bottle — reds,
oranges, blues, greens, ambers, glowing in the sunshine. Marion was
absolutely enchanted with it, and couldn’t wait to tell me all about
it. She said some of the prettiest homes in Jackson have bottle trees
in their yards, and that the inmates at Parchman Penitentiary in the
Delta make the iron bottle trees and sell them. She had bought her own
tree from Parchman.
My friend was having the best time going to flea
markets and antique stores hunting for old colored bottles to recycle
into bottle-tree ornaments. One of the first things I did when we got
to Harrison was shop for pretty bottles for Marion, and I found several
bright red and orange ones in our downtown flea markets.
For the
very first story I covered for the Daily Times, I went out to the
daffodil labyrinth at the Chamber, where well-known Mississippi
horticulturist and garden writer Felder Rushing was giving the Master
Gardeners pointers and helping them plant annuals in among the
daffodils in the labyrinth he had helped design for them. I told Felder
about Marion’s bottle tree, and he grinned and proudly said, “I’m the
one who’s gotten that bottle-tree fad started!”
Well, ever since I
first saw Marion’s tree, and realized how pretty it looked with the sun
hitting it in the morning, shining through those colored bottles out
there in her beautiful yard, I’ve wanted a bottle tree of my own.
Doyle
agrees with me (oh, what a gift it is to have an agreeable husband!)
that Squirrels’ Leap deserves a bottle tree of its very own, and has
said he’ll make me one. I’m fixing to start keeping my eyes open for
colorful old bottles. I’ve already got a few that I’ve found here and
there over the years.
So be watching ... the next time you ride by
our house, we’re liable to have an iron tree covered with a bunch of
blue Milk of Magnesia bottles, glowing cobalt in the early spring
sunshine.
My proper, ladylike Mississippi grandmother might turn
over in her grave if she knew I was thinking about planting a bottle
tree in my yard, but I’m really excited about it.
To me, a bottle
tree is a beautiful example of taking something ugly and transforming
it into something wonderful. Of taking something bound for the trash
can or the dump, coated in dirt, full of spiderwebs, and cleaning it up
and placing it where the light shines through it, so it glows like a
jewel.
Isn’t that what our creative and loving Father does with our lives, if we give Him the chance?
By Celia DeWoody
Published Jan. 21, 2009 Harrison (Ark.) Daily Times
Copyright 2009 CPI, Inc.
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