Postscript from the Author

The Trees of Pittsburgh, PA

I got the idea for this story when Thomas, my husband, and I lived in the Pittsburgh, PA area.  

The window in our master bedroom looked south over our steeply sloping backyard that bordered on a cemetery. From that window, we viewed a panorama of the beautifully colored autumn trees that made Pittsburgh famous. We had an old photo that was taken from that same window that the previous owner had left us.  

Comparing the view in that old photo to the view from our window, the changes in the growth of the trees was quite amazing. Tom commented that the taller, fuller trees completely eliminated the sights and sounds from heavily traveled Route 8 that ran below the south edge of the steeply, sloping cemetery. I said, “Thank goodness people don’t grow as fast as trees!” He stared at me and said, “Now, there’s a deep thought!” 

The idea rumbled around in my head and amused me. I started to put words into a story and “If Grandpas Grew Like Trees” grew and grew into a 29 page book that was mostly text. While the original idea for this story started in 2005 when we lived in the Pittsburgh, PA area, it sat on my computer in many different versions for years. 

In 2007, we moved back to the Chicago area. I didn’t have much time to work on the story because we had a huge, beautiful yard with numerous flower beds that required constant attention. As Tom said, “Weeds don’t pull themselves!” 

In 2017, we moved to Peyton, CO to live near our younger son and his family. In Peyton, I have lots of time for indoor activities. Peyton is as arid as Phoenix and instead of flower beds, we have beautiful wildflowers that take care of themselves. I remembered the Grandpa Trees story and pulled it up on my computer.

 The story still amused me, so I started working on it again.

In 2021, I contacted an illustrator about creating the illustrations. This illustrator worked primarily with cartoon-like characters. I knew that wouldn’t work for the Grandpa Trees story, so I paid him for the example he created for me and   dropped the idea of finding an illustrator who would understand the   Grandpa Trees story. At that time, I still didn’t have a good ending   to the story, so again, I just let it sit on my computer. 

On May 04, 2023, while driving to donate stuff to a thrift store in Colorado Springs, CO, an ending to the story wandered across my mind. When we got home, I wrote it down. 

I started communicating with illustrators again and found a wonderful artist, Antonia Pylaeva, who agreed to do the illustrations. She and I were both sellers on Etsy. That is how I found her. She lives in Russia with her husband and three small children. We have several things in common, including the love of nature,  
beautiful flowers, and vegetable gardens. 

 
Lesson learned: Never give up on an amusing idea.