Big Blue Ladder

by Harold Turner

Originally published in American Lutherie #33, 1993



Now I wouldn’t know a Pinusconeus abundus from an Avocado delectable, but I do know eastern white pine. I’ve rolled down mountains of sawdust, sawn down a few Christmas trees, and lit camp fires with the cones. I’ve even made a few instruments from the stuff.

Eastern white pine has one rare gift I’m glad to be associated with: the climb! A mass of limbs from the earth to the moon and back. A boyhood dream come true. A place to get away from it all. In the bowing branches of a pine you can be an astronaut, a cowboy ready to jump on his trusty steed, or Tarzan of the Apes swinging from limb to limb.