January 22, 2009

•   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.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  • 8:55 pm
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