1. Redwoods… Anything alive, over 65, and not on Social Security gets an automatic vote.

2. White Ash… Baseball bats. Gotta admire anything that can turn around a 95mph fastball and deter a burglar. Without white ash I couldn’t watch the Orioles suck just as badly standing at the plate with nothing in their hands. I couldn’t watch because… I had nothing to menace the burlar with who stole my TV.

3. Boabab… A tree on crack or steroids or sumthin”! Ever seen one of these surreal suckers… Whoa!! Besides… Just say the name. Bo_Ah_Bab… Bo_Ah_Bab… Bo_Ah_Bab. Just saying it makes you want to break out the bongos and get your freak on.

4. Blue Spruce… Gotta have at least one evergreen in here or the nudist colonies would have to shut down in ski season!! Besides, ever seen a skier smack one? That’s fun all by itself!!

5. Silver Maple… There were two huge, old, rotten, hollow silver maples in the front yard when I was a kid. Each summer they were home to 3 or 4 blacksnakes… Big Fun when you’re 9 years old and every time you walk under one you know you’re putting your life at risk! I felt like a big game hunter on safari every day!! They’re dead now…

6. Eastern White Pine… But not for the reason you’d think… Upon driving a golfball into the arboreal areas that line many fairways, the throaty “Bonk” sound produced by its screaming dead center intersection with a sturdy white pine…. is most enjoyable. Sometimes a good golfer can place a shot so the ball riccochets 3 or 4 times producing a very melodious rhythm! (Break out the bongos again..) The sound of a golfball hitting any other species of tree… is just wimpy.

7. Ebony… another long story here. While innocently rifling through my aunt’s bureau drawers as a 13 yr. old, I stumbled upon a… well… how shall I put this delicately… an ebon…..implement shall we say, in the name of propriety. She tried to pass it off as some Egyptian idol or something. Yeah… right!! I remember you could see your reflection in it. Beautifully polished. Oh… and pianos… maybe I should have just gone the piano route?

8. American Oak… Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey is aged in American oak barrels. Besides, the oak half-barrel full of petunias in the front yard always makes a nice statement I think. Aside from that I couldn’t give less of a damn for this or any of the other oaks.

9. Yellow Poplar… Very common tree that grows almost anydamnwhere near water on the east coast. But… pass yourself off as a “Tulip Tree” in one of those nursery catalogs, and you can charge ten times what you’re worth. I admire a tree that can pull off a scam like that.

10. Plywood… Oh shut up!!! I know… do you think I’m a complete idiot?? Whatever the hell kind of tree plywood’s made of then. Plywood is neat stuff. I made a wooden top for an old Jeep I had once. So what if it looked like a mobile outhouse… it kept my redneck butt dry. Again, it made just the right satement I was hoping for.

11. Weeping Willow… Seriously now. Can you think of a more beautiful scene? A majestic willow with small children playing in the drooping whiplike branches, blinded and running between them like little banshees, until one of them plows straight into its trunk and you hear that familiar conking sound, not unlike the previously mentioned golfball/pine/bonk entry. Just warms your heart, doesn’t it?

12. Gingko… Aren’t they like dinosaur trees or something, all grown from 7 trees found in like…Outer Mongolia?? Hey… it ain’t all pork rinds and Oprah here… we read!! (Slowly, and we hardly move our lips at all.)(…and is there an Inner Mongolia? Gotta ask Uncle Cletus… he’s got a library card!)

13. Clothes trees… See… now…. If you have a clothes tree, you never actually have to walk all the way to the bathroom or laundry to put them in a hamper. Clothes trees have little hooks at all angles! Brilliant!! The little woman can’t get mad because your trousers aren’t on the floor where you dropped them. No, you were tidy and flung them across the room in the direction of one of those protruding hooky things, which made it impossible to miss! If you’re a good shot, it might be a whole month or two before you actually have to walk a few steps to pick up the tighty-whities. A small price to pay when you factor in the sporting entertainment value. Probably my favorite of all the trees.

–Coffee Shop Bill