This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, from the arts to sports and from business to history and everything in between, including your

stories, send them to Our American Stories.com.

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Talking about that up next is a story from our regular contributor and listener

on W.H.O. in Des Moines, Joy Neal Kidney. Joy is the keeper of her family's history and the author

of Leara's letters, the story of love and loss for an Iowa family during World War II. Today, Joy shares with us a short story on the importance of an ordinary tree in her own yard.

Take it away, Joy. There's a humble maple tree in the backyard that has worked its way into our hearts.

You probably wouldn't call this most ordinary maple beautiful any season of the year.

Other maple trees have handsome leaves and are colorful in autumn.

This unremarkable tree has nondescript leaves in autumn that just turn a dull yellow, the bland color of corn flakes.

Not long after we moved back to Iowa with a toddler,

we discovered that this plain neighbor casts a fine, dense shadow.

Soon our two-year-old was digging in a sandbox beside the trunk, screened from

the sun and heat by a leafy green canopy. We found that as the sultry summer sun lowered

in the afternoon sky, the maple's blessed shade sheltered our small patio in west windows.

The branches of the maple were a little too high for even a bigger kid to climb.

But my husband roped a tire swing to one stout limb when our son gained some years and inches his dad added a knotted climbing rope During summer's thunderstorms, we marvel at the maple's flexibility and tenacity.

The wind whips and churns, flinging writhing branches in a wild dance.

We try to imagine the huge network of underground roots,

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