A Story About an Old Cypress Tree
Originally published March 3, 2015
Revised Nov. 5, 2021
This is the story of a cypress tree that lay submerged in a bayou in South Louisiana for years. How many years? 100? 300? We know it was at least 90.
It begins one day when I decided I wanted to build a writing table for my home library in Slidell, La. I looked on Craigslist and found an ad for cypress beams reclaimed from century-old New Orleans buildings. I called the number and reached a guy named Miles Comstock, who said he dealt in cypress lumber in Paradis, La., southwest of New Orleans. If I wanted to come down, he would show me what he had for sale. Paradis is a French word pronounced PAIR-a-dee.
The next Saturday morning, I drove down to the tiny community and found his small house, where roughly-cut cypress lumber, in various thicknesses from one to four inches, lay across raised platforms positioned all over his yard, some of it covered by canopies, all in various stages of drying. This dimensional lumber, Miles told me, had been cut from reclaimed structural beams that had held up old office buildings and warehouses in and around New Orleans. Uncut, these aged beams had a gray patina, but when freshly sawn, the inside faces of the resulting boards looked like new lumber, a cream color, almost white, with subtle grain. It seemed that if I wanted to preserve the outside color I would have to be careful with it, for the thin gray surface could be scraped or sanded off easily. This was not what I had hoped to find. I had assumed, for some reason, that cypress would be darker throughout the tree, not just on surfaces long exposed to air and dust.
Miles appeared to be 30-something, with long hair and strong arms. You wouldn’t mistake him for a city boy and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have a problem with that. He was a little reserved and spoke softly and quickly. I had to listen closely to understand him. I didn’t want to spook him with too many questions. He was not a good salesman. He didn’t push any of his products but showed me anything I wanted to see. I wasn’t finding anything with the look I wanted for a table, but somewhere in our conversation he mumbled that he had some “sinker over there,” so I stopped him and asked him about that. Miles didn’t seem too inclined to explain himself but I persisted, gently. He said his sawmill was nearby and he had some “sinker” there and if I wanted to follow him he would show me. I had no idea what sinker was but I thought this could be interesting.
I got in my truck and followed Miles in his. He led me down a country road about a mile out of Paradis and we parked half on the shoulder, half on the road while he got out to unlock the gate to a rough, weedy pasture that contained a few trees and a dark, decrepit shed.
Through the gate and into pasture we drove. Behind a stand of trees, sure enough, sat a portable sawmill. The narrow trailer had two wheels and held a large, sliding circular sawblade and motor. The rig could be pulled behind a vehicle. He said he would be right back, and in a few minutes he returned driving a backhoe, a timber hook dangling from the front bucket. With this hook he fished a length of cypress tree out of some weeds. The tree trunk was approximately four feet in diameter and 9 feet long, including part of the roots that belled out at one end. Miles moved from one complicated, tricky tool to another with the confidence and skill one often sees in country boys who can do a little of everything.
Miles carefully lowered the log onto the trailer, climbed off the backhoe and started to talk. He said he knew an old guy down on Bayou des Allemands, not far south of there, who was about 90 years old. This man had lived on the shore of the bayou all his life and had told Miles that as a boy he used to swim out to a cypress tree that was lying partly exposed in the water and dive from it. About 10 years ago the man had someone pull that tree out of the water and drag it onto the bank, where it sat, drying, until last year when Miles finally talked his friend into selling it to him.
Trees like this are called sinker cypress, a term referring to logs that have been under water so long the wood has become tinted by minerals in the water, becoming darker, richly toned, highly desirable specimens, each unique in coloration. This old-growth wood is harder and more stable than newer-growth cypress and is coveted by woodworkers.
Miles told me that if the wood looked good once he cut into it, he would sell me as many planks as I wanted in whatever lengths and thicknesses I desired. Width would be determined by the diameter of the tree and where on the round trunk the saw cut was made. We discussed thickness of one inch and two inches. He quoted me what I felt was a good price, so all that remained was to cut into the log and see what we had.
As the saw motor roared, I watched Miles guide the extraordinarily large and dangerous blade down the length of the log. He cut some planks just over two-inches thick and some just over one-inch thick, providing some extra thickness for free so I could plane the rough surfaces of the boards and still have a full one or two inches. This was a generous gesture.
He said you don’t really know what you have until you cut a log open. It could be beautiful or ordinary. It could be solid or so fully of pecky holes as to be unusable. Pecky is a term for hollow tubes that are created in some old cypress trees by a fungus. When a cypress tree is sliced open and these holes are revealed they can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it. Some people like the rustic look of pecky wood. Too many pecky holes can make a cypress log too weak and fragile to build things with it. This tree turned out to be money – very little pecky, multiple shades of brown and gold, and abundant grain. We both enjoyed the discovery.
Miles cut the log in the most efficient manner he could determine, to minimize waste, and let me pick the best pieces. I bought a half-dozen planks or so about nine feet long of various widths. I also purchased some one- and two-inch-thick lumber he milled for me from cypress beams that had been saved from an old warehouse in New Orleans. When we were finished doing business, he talked about some of the other odd jobs he worked and about hunting and fishing. He showed me a steel hog trap he had built. It looked strong enough for a bear.
Traipsing around that field and learning about country ingenuity in South Louisiana had been a satisfying way to spend a Saturday morning. I was born in a town not much bigger than Paradis, raised by country people and farmers. My countryside had been in the Midwest, but Miles’s life felt familiar. It was refreshing to get out of the city and be reminded there are other, no doubt healthier, ways to make a living than sitting at a desk. It was good to get my shoes dirty for a change and smell the sun-baked grass and the weeds and the trees.
We loaded my truck and off I went with my treasure. It seemed to matter a little to me that my table would be built not too far away, here in bayou country where cypress trees still grow tall and people like Miles and his old friend on Bayou des Allemands continue to make their lives at the remote, watery edges of a difficult, uniquely bountiful land.
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.