Back in the ‘50s when I was a wee girl, things were so different. Often at the spur of the moment, my dad would pack my mom, my younger brother and me in the ‘53 baby-blue Chevy and we’d take a “road trip”. These were the days before air-conditioning and those days could be stifling indoors. We’d head down Ogden Avenue west towards Morton Arboretum where we’d visit the “pine forest”. Oh what a delight! At first us children would run around up and down the rows of gigantic evergreens. They were as evenly spaced as squares on a checkerboard. And the smell – as fresh as a mist of spray from a lake. Breathing in was so easy (and we weren’t even aware of the increase in oxygen that photosynthesis produces). Lastly, we’d lie upon those soft layers of fallen needles and look up at those mighty trees shading us from the harsh sunny summer rays.
