Hug a tree today!

The trees in Boulder are casting their first shade today!

Although the trees are yet in bud and the fully formed leaves are not yet out, the sidewalk and lawn beneath the cottonwood tree across the street from me are dappled in the spring sunshine.

It's really part of childhood's springtime memories package, isn't it? When we used to play outside every chance we could, each day revealed its subtle progress into or away from the season.

When Boulder's star-petal magnolia trees blossomed a month ago, the sight took me right back to Manhattan and those same magnolias blooming in front of the New York Public Library, the harbingers of spring.

In Minsk I had a favorite tree along the city's main thoroughfare -- Lenin Boulevard? -- and walking by it almost every day I caught the magic of its opening up after winter into a shimmer of different leaf-planes, enchanting, a simple maple tree.

But it was when I first came to Ankara in the summer of 1984 that I really felt the refreshing beauty of tree-shade, on hot July Atatürk Boulevard, and I've been grateful to Ankara's trees ever since:

In Gaziosmanpaşa, at the northwest corner of the Presidential Palace on Çankaya Boulevard, is a huge old plane tree, clearly a witness to Atatürk's founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and earlier. A being so noble must be saluted at every opportunity, and so I did as I jogged around the Palas on my daily run in the morning.

The avenue that leads up to the Turkish Parliament in Kızılay is lined with handsome horse-chestnut trees, especially magnificent in May when they flower in white and pink candles. Every year I try to make my annual pilgrimage to the Parliament to enjoy lunch with a friend, to come closer to the trees and gardens.

And in Kızılay all along Ataturk Boulevard the old plane trees deserve all the recognition -- and TLC -- they can get. For what a tough job they have! putting up with constant traffic, especially the buses which scrape along the branches, belching out their fumes. But these trees are the indispensable piece of nature on the sidewalks for the humans shopping, working, commuting, walking.

This past week we saw International Earth Day -- Turkey's Children's Day -- and Arbor(Trees)Day in the USA. Hug a child and a tree and celebrate the season!!!

"Ağac dikmek bir evlat yetiştirmek kadar uğurludur."

"Planting trees is as blessed an act as raising children."