I can't really explain it. I can only describe it.
But as far back as I can remember, I've had an intense interest in and abiding affinity for trees. All kinds.
I've always lived near them. The more of them around, the better. Deep in the wilderness woods of Montana, I even built a log house with huge lodge-pole pine logs that started growing up in that neighborhood long before I was even born. I counted the rings to make sure.
If you want top-notch natural insulation to keep the cold out and the cozies in, you won't find anything better than 20-inch pine logs, carefully caulked. Pioneers knew that. Unlike other walls, logs soak up the room's heat, then radiate it back if the indoor temperature dips.
As a kid in rural Ohio, I built a tree-house — more like a tree platform, actually — in a tall tree out back. I'd sit up there and whistle-mimic bird songs I heard. Most of the time, they'd respond. I still enjoy those kinds of connections with wild creatures who remind me that my little world co-exists in neighborhood orbits with many others.
And I built a little clubhouse down below. They were connected by soup cans on a wire and dish towels thumb-tacked over the windows for privacy, don't you know.
My dog, Buddy, and I and some friends spent many good times in there. (If you've got any tree stories, please share them in the Comments.)
Also, I dug a pit maybe three feet deep next to my encampment. I'm not sure why, but it seemed rather important at the time.
On weekends, when I was helping Dad take care of our few acres, around lunchtime, he would often say, "You look like you could use a cheeseburger." I never figured out what that look was, but he was always right.
He'd give me 50 cents. That bought a cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake at a little diner down the road.
There's an online meme making the rounds nowadays of a dog, stick in mouth, looking puzzled by the door to his house with the caption: How come I can't bring a stick in the house, but you can drag in an entire tree?
Millions of us are dragging Christmas trees into our homes these days. And that lovely pine scent drifts through the room. Even if you have an artificial tree, you might spritz around a few sprays of the best-selling artificial scent — Pine.
These living creatures, called trees, my experiences with and memories of them, that's what this week's audio commentary is about.
This week's column examined in some detail an eye-opening discovery about the billions in military aid that are flowing from the U.S. (and even more from European allies) to sustain Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion.
Although the aid does not in any way involve the American military or endanger their lives, the aid has become a hot-button issue in Washington's ongoing precarious budget negotiations.
I suspect that's because too many of those D.C. denizens fail to look ahead and ponder what would happen there if Vladimir Putin's empire-rebuilding scheme is successful again in Ukraine, as it was in Georgia in 2008, when his annexing drew no significant Western reaction beyond words and photo ops, and then again in Crimea in 2014, when the same inaction encouraged Putin's ensuing 2022 invasion.
The startling fact is that 90 percent of all that aid money allocated to Ukraine for aid is — wait for it! — not actually going to Ukraine. You read that right.
It's being spent right here in the U.S. to buy the necessary armaments to thwart Putin's expansion plans now and in the future. Think of it like an economic stimulus package to create jobs and enhance national security.
And, fortunately, the funds are also reviving our self-defense industries that went to sleep in too many ways after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
By now, pretty much everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health. Both my parents perished from their habits. The most recent audio commentary examined an anticipated government ban on menthol cigarettes.
I say anticipated because Joe Biden's administration has delayed the ban. That means more people will begin smoking menthol cigarettes, become addicted, and suffer the adverse health effects of smoking.
That delay step comes not from inadequate research about the deleterious effects of menthol cigarettes, including their heightened addictiveness. The feds have been studying this situation for way more than a decade.
Next week begins the 60th anniversary year since the Surgeon General first warned about the deadly impact of smoking. About half the country smoked then; today, only 11 percent do, even fewer young people.
The delay comes from Joe Biden's far greater concern about something else. Here's that brief audio story.
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