This makes two consecutive book reviews that are seriously belated and that’s hardly their only connection. I wasn’t even aware of either the book or its author when I arrived at the 2022 Lincoln Highway Association conference but, John Jackson, co-author of that other book, was. More importantly, John was aware that Thompson was at the conference to get some insight into the days of named auto trails. He is working on a book based on the true story of a 1920s medical emergency that involved the Yellowstone Trail. John was also aware that I had recently traveled the Yellowstone Trail and he intended to get the two of us together at the conference. John wasn’t actually present when Thompson and I first met but, because of his earlier comments to both of us, no introduction was required when we found ourselves sitting at the same table for a presentation.

I know I’ve mentioned before that I do not read much fiction these days so it is unlikely I would have stumbled across Omar on my own. Thompson and I had several discussions about the Yellowstone Trail and early automobile travel in general, and that gave me the personal connection that made me want to start reading the book. The book itself made me not want to quit once I had started. It’s a page-turner of the first order.

By simplifying the plot to a ridiculous degree I can describe it as a race between terrorists and government agencies to reach a treasure. The treasure isn’t a simple stash of cash or gold bars but an exquisitely bound book that went down with the Titanic. Those elements alone bring bookbinding, deep sea exploration, and maritime law into the mix. Toss in an airport bombing, high-speed shoot-outs, kidnapping, and some professional rivalry and betrayal and there are enough plot threads to all but assure at least one is left dangling suspensefully every page or so.

And the bookbinding and sea exploring aspects are not dismissed with a few words of awe and wonder. They are covered with some serious discussion of craft, technology, and even a little chemistry.

I started this review with an admission of being late to the game but I’m not just a little late; I’m over twenty years late. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing is mentioned a few times in this book as an example of a major terrorist attack. It surely loomed large in Thompson’s mind as he constructed this novel in the latter half of the 1990s. On the day that Omar was published, August 1, 2001, people knew that terrorism on the scale Thompson describes was possible but not many thought it likely. Less than a month and a half later we knew better.

Omar Craig O. Thompson, StrataGem Press (August 1, 2001), 5.25 x 8.25 inches, 624 pages, ISBN 978-0967520711
Available through Amazon.

I have probably known John Jackson for nearly ten years. John was instrumental in establishing the Lincoln Highway association’s “Bernie Queneau Coast-To-Coast Lincoln Highway Recognition Award” in 2014, and I know we met while he was actively working on that. Maybe before. He has continued to be quite active in the LHA including serving presently as treasurer. Several standout articles written by him have appeared in the association’s official publication, The Forum.

I realize that by telling you all of this, I’m really spotlighting just how late I am to digging into Trail of Trees. The book had existed for at least a couple of years before I met John and the events it tells of happened a decade or more before that. I think I may have heard something about John and his wife Joyce planting some trees but I’m not certain even of that. l am certain that what I heard — if anything — did not reveal that “some trees” equaled 252 and the planting involved all fifty states and the District of Columbia.

This book is important because the project it documents is important. It started as something to occupy Joyce’s mind as she underwent chemotherapy. That’s pretty important, of course, but the project soon grew to involve her immediate and extended family and small groups of strangers in every corner of the country. Some of those strangers were involved ever so briefly and no deeper than their official positions required while others took wholeheartedly to their piece of the project and stayed in contact with the Jacksons far beyond the day of planting and the planning that preceded it.

In terms of time, I’ve little doubt that planning was the biggest part of the project. The concept is deceptively easy to describe: plant some trees at a place with a Jackson connection in every state. But just identifying those places was far from easy. Sure, many states have a city named Jackson and there are a couple of Jacksonvilles but others seem to contain not even a hint of Jackson. There Joyce had to get creative and tie in the names of their children for plantings at places with names like Christina River, Robertsville, and Stevens Village. The names Joyce and John also got pulled into the mix.

Of course, picking a location was just the beginning. They weren’t the only challenges facing the Jacksons but finding someone in the area to coordinate with, scheduling travel, and arranging for the actual trees to be planted were the biggest. They tried to arrange plantings in clusters to get the most out of long trips and, of course, they had to schedule those plantings around all their normal real-life requirements. It’s an impressive accomplishment.

The book contains no huge surprises in the normal sense. The Jacksons set out to plant trees in fifty states and they succeed. On the other hand, I was somewhat surprised at how much I enjoyed reading it. The plantings are covered in individual chapters in chronological sequence. In addition to details of the actual planting and the leadup to it, the chapters typically include background information on the town or area including its history. Sometimes reaching a site was as simple as driving there from their home but more often it involved flying and renting a car big enough to hold five, ten, or fifteen trees. In Alaska, the final leg of the trip was by boat. There’s a little travelogue in every chapter.

The original ten-year target — which was met — is an indication of the project’s size. Its complexity is hinted at by the schedule and travel challenges I’ve mentioned. There really isn’t a similarly simple indicator of its long-term impact but a sense of that is available to some of us by thinking of trees planted by previous generations of our own families. There are trees planted by my father and grandfather without ceremony that can stir up memories. Imagine the memories connected with 252 trees whose planting involved thousands of miles and hundreds of people. It is, for certain, a legacy.

Of all those trees, only five were known to have perished by the time this book was published. Embarrassingly, those were the trees in Ohio, my home state and the Jackson’s current residence. I checked with John after reading the book and learned that they managed to get the trees replaced after moving to Ohio. That’s great news but I’m still embarrassed.

Trail of Trees, John and Joyce Jackson, Printing Arts Press (October 2010), 8.5 x 11 inches, 261 pages, ISBN 978-0615397146
Available through Amazon.

I got this book from Billy on May 7, 2015. I finished reading it on March 15, 2022. It is, as Billy himself admits and my elapsed reading time confirms, “a difficult read”. “Most people,” he says, “have understandably given up on it.” I was determined not to be like most people — no matter how long it took.

Although I never gave up on it, I obviously put it aside from time to time. Sometimes it was for a day or two and sometimes it was for weeks or months. Each pause in my reading of The Sycamore Trees basically lasted as long as I had something at hand that was not a difficult read. I believe that understanding the book’s chronology would have been difficult in any case. My many starts and stops aggravated it immensely.

The book has been called a semi-autobiographical novel. According to Billy, it tells about his early life. “The best story I can tell in words is there if one really wants to know it”, he says. The writing style has been called stream of consciousness. In some manner, “stream of consciousness” and “semi-autobiographical” might also apply to the giant metal sculpture that is his life work. Its picture is on the book’s back cover. It is what initially made me and most others aware of Billy’s existence. When I first happened upon the sculpture in 2005, I thought its name, “Billy Tripp’s Mindfield”, might have been the title of a misplaced Beatles song, and learning that William Blevins Tripp is the artist’s real name has not entirely erased that image.

Almost from the moment I started reading The Sycamore Trees, I saw similarities not only in the artist’s approach to the sculpture and to the book but in my reaction to both. I have viewed that sculpture multiple times and always marvel at the artistry and craftsmanship in pretty much every detail. Yet, when I step back and try to take in the entire thing, I’m overwhelmed. I can appreciate and maybe even understand the parts but not the whole. I have that very same relationship with the book.

In spots, the book does seem to be an unfiltered stream of consciousness. But most of the components of that stream are reasonably constructed thoughts. There are instances of rambling that are frustrating to a reader wanting to get on with the story but, for the most part, they seem to be trying to say something in as many ways as possible rather than saying the exact same thing over and over.

There was certainly some relief felt when I turned the last page but it was not the relief of finally being done with something unpleasant. In fact, part of it may have been the relief of realizing that reading the book had not been a waste of time (which was something I’d questioned more than once while the reading was in process). This is one of the few books I’ve read where a first reading equipped me to get a whole lot more out of a second reading. I’m not going to rush into it. I’ll wait at least until my next physical. If the doctor thinks I might have another seven years in me, I just might rewind and repeat.

Like most others, this review ends with an Amazon link. There are some used copies available at reasonable prices and even a couple claims of new copies at exorbitant prices. However, if you really want a copy and can possibly get to Brownsville, TN, I recommend visiting the Mindfield and getting the book from Billy. 

The Mindfield Years, Vol. 1: The Sycamore Trees, Billy Tripp, Mindfield Press (January 1, 1996), 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 736 pages, ISBN 0-9652238-0-9
Available through Amazon.