2024 is, no doubt, a bumper crop of the magical trees. Let Georgia have peach trees and Missouri the dogwood, even the Cherry trees which are celebrated around DC. Ahh yes, but the Magnolia, nothing else will make one sigh like a Magnolia, so says this Mississippian.
I am so, so proud when I drive Interstate 20/59 and enter the state from Alabama, to gaze upon the majestic Magnolias, one after the other, especially when all in bloom, and enjoy the calming aroma that says I have arrived home, home to the Magnolia State. Before I knew really anything about a Magnolia tree, there was one right outside my grandmother’s kitchen window, and it was good for climbing. My cousin, Joann and I scooted to the very top while grandmother yelled out the kitchen window, right above the kitchen sink.
“You girls better get down before you break a leg.” Why did grandmothers worry about broken legs, I wondered then? I know now. But it seemed she saw danger everywhere.
But the Magnolia’s branches are wide and supportive, we kids discovered. Wide enough to rock our baby-dolls or have a tea party. And on another day, we would fashion a horse bridle and ride the afternoon away telling each other stories with ideas of wagon trains and Indians on spotted horses.
We also enjoyed a pretend kitchen on the Magnolia limb, where we sold lemonade and pretend cookies but the lemonade was real, carefully hoisted up the tree branch with help from grandmother. There were times I was invited to spend-the-.
