Jim Love and his wife, Diane, met just before summer arrived in 1963.
The high school sweethearts often rendezvoused at a mesquite tree that stood tall at Amphitheater Middle School.
They would walk to a nearby Dairy Queen, grab some ice cream cones and bring them back to the tree, where they hung out for hours, exchanging chatter and enjoying each other’s company.
“We didn’t ever share that time with anyone,” Jim Love said. “It was just for us.”
For the Loves, who have now been married for 50 years, and many others in the Amphitheater community, that tree was an icon, a gathering place where generations of people found shelter from the sun and created fond memories.
That mesquite tree, which was presumed to be about 100 years old, is no longer there. It had to come down because in its old age, the tree’s branches were becoming a safety hazard.
But recently, it began a new stage of life as a bench, which will be placed at the school in the coming weeks. Leftover material will eventually be fashioned into various craft items, including a trophy case and clocks for the district’s schools.
The tree’s seeds were also harvested to be planted at the district’s various schools.
It was a matter of time before one of the branches was going to come down and hurt someone, said Pat Sledge, Amphitheater’s director of facilities. The tree came down about 1½ years ago after the district consulted with arborists in an attempt to save it.
“It was a painful decision for people to have to make because it was such a loved tree,” he said.
The district did all it could to have the tree remain at Amphi Middle, including putting cables on the branches and using fences to support it, he said. But when it became clear that it had to go, the district wanted to at least save parts of it.
In that process, the district reached out to its carpenter, Dave Hall, whose vision was to create something rustic, as the tree was.
“You just kind of look at it and it kind of talks to you,” Hall said. “I was just looking at what mother nature did with it.”
Hall designed and crafted the bench, revealed at a November governing board meeting. He was honored then for his exceptional work with the tree’s remains.
Jim Love said he was devastated to see the tree go.
“It’s not about the tree itself but what it gave to all of us,” Love said. “Shade, comfort, privacy, a place to enjoy each other. That’s what it meant to us.”
