Who are you? The Human side of Bonsai

Hoodlum from Baltimore.
Childhood consisted of team sports including (American) Football, basketball, baseball, lacrosse, soccer....followed by Skateboarding, BMX, Mtn Biking....
Never wanted to waste more time in skool, only wanted to work and make money.
Been working since age 10.....legally since 14.
Found a career in Commercial Refrigeration Service work.....I love it.
Its solitary work, I'm always alone unless I'm training a new hire.....which I love, working alone is just the best!
Its a bit physically demanding too which keeps me in good enough physical shape ...and requires state and federal licensing which demands wages higher than other "trades".

Private Sector and Proud to be Non-Union, for life!

Bonsai began for me when I was researching information about azaleas online, for several that I had at my old residence.
During my research I stumbled across images online of Azalea Bonsai.....I thought some had to be plastic, but no, they are real!
I was blown away by the beauty and the illusion of a giant flowering tree.....it triggered my curiosity to the point that I bought many bonsai books, and began my journey.

Its been about 5 years and I dont have much to show for it yet.....but I'm learning daily, thanks to BNUT!!!

Thanks everyone for all your help over these years, really thank you!


Edit: oh yeah.....and always been a nature, tree, plant and animal lover.

Having a ton of fun with my 3 year old daughter, showing her the Praying Mantises and the bees and all kinds of bugs and critters, teaching her that they are our friends....
Only backfire so far is her wanting to pick up every spider she sees....focusing on looking more than touching, LOL!
 
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Hum.....love all things outdoors, gardening (never been particularly good at it), trees, birds, etc. lived in Japan for a couple of years, never thought much of bonsai, preferred hiking in the hills. Actually looked down on bonsai as a way to force mans will upon nature. Never even looked at them much .

Fast forward some years, neighbor says he’s taking a 2 hour intro to bonsai....ah away to get some away time. Got a cute (ugly) little ficus out of it. Next year, 20 trees....and only killed a Fukien tea, and a atlas cedar (that I dug up with a rock and carried around in a plastic bag I found). 30+ trees and wife says it’s time for a hinoki....
 
In high school I started working at a wholesale plant grower and got hooked on plants. Later in college I managed a restaurant and the owner was involved in Bonsai. He took me to the Monastery in Conyers where I met Father Paul. He and I became fairly close and I ended up building a lot of stuff for their greenhouse and garden in the 1980's. While helping Father Paul I was lucky to meet several of the greats, including John Naka. By this point I was hooked. But after a few years life got in the way and I had to drop Bonsai. 20 years later I decided to quit coaching and started Bonsai again. This was about 3 years ago.
 
In 1976 I was finishing up my bachelors degree in biology at a university outside Washington DC when the Japanese emperor donated the nucleus of our national collection and I was smitten. I did a little yamadori collecting on my grandads mountaintop but of course over the following years they all weakened and died. I dabbled in bonsai for a while after that while I finished my MS and PhD in biology (ecology) and worked as a research ecologist for the Dept of Interior. I finally got serious about bonsai a few years ago after I retired and the rest is obsession.
 
Cable said:
The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.
Click to expand...
@Cable 😂😂😂Can I use this for my obituary ?😂😂😂. Give us more!!
 
I was always going to get started in bonsai from the time I was 20 yrs old. Well, life happened and time passed.I spent 30 years driving truck. So 2 years ago at the age of 67 and in retirement, I thought I had better get started or I was going to run out of time.
I live in Iowa and the closest bonsai association is 90 miles away. So I have been studying and reading on my own. I may not live long enough to see any of my trees mature. But for me the journey is as nice as the end result. I really enjoyed your videos. Thank you.
 
I grew up hunting and fishing around the swamps of South Louisiana. There are still some huge virgin cypress here and there throughout the swamps. BIG......as in 8 foot to 10 foot in diameter. The only thing that saved them from the crosscut saws of the early 1900s, was that they were hollow. I can't pass by one without getting up close and patting it's massive trunk.

I saw "Karate Kid" and that kinda sparked something in me. I dug a pitiful little oak and nursed it for a few months. My dear old mom told me about a bonsai show in Baton Rouge ( 40 miles away) and I went and was smitten. The trees gave me some of the same feelings as the huge cypresses around my home. Then, along came the internet and it was off to the races.
 
Thanks so much for sharing everyone
. A lot of interesting backgrounds and stories here.
 
When i was even younger than now, i got a little book about bonsai from Sinterklaas. I read it. Dug up plantsin a local park and put them in shallow pots I found around the house. We went for holidays, i came back and all plants were dead.

Fast forward 20 years, with me going to highschool, get my degree in tropical ecology, phd in remote sensing & biological systems moving around the globe living on several continents and I find myself accepting a position in internationalization, married and a house with garden. Missing the time outdoors after giving up biology as profession i spend my evenings working the garden. With time to spare. On the shelves that same 20 page bonsai book. Well.. that was 2011 and now I have a problem. My garden is too small. Or as my wife sais it. I have too many trees.
 
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Grew up in about fifteen places in the U.S. all rural or mostly so. childhood spent roaming woods, deserts, mountains and plains from Arizona to Massachusetts and in between. LEarned a lot on my own in those places about trees and animals. As I got into my teens and 20's, I took up outdoor sports, skiing (used to be an instructor), hunting and fishing. Moving around also taught me about Americans (there are many kinds of us, all different, but also all the same).

Anyway, I got into bonsai when I first visited the National Arboretum's collection sometime in the late 80's. I wasn't so much inspired by the "Asian" aspects, as much as I was about the wildness the trees conveyed. They spoke the language of lonely mountaintops, old apple orchards and forests that I spent my childhood wandering around.
 
Little Dwarf Trees in Ceramic Pots has always fascinated me as an Art form, since the late 1960's....
rockm said:
Grew up in about fifteen places in the U.S. all rural or mostly so. childhood spent roaming woods, deserts, mountains and plains from Arizona to Massachusetts and in between. LEarned a lot on my own in those places about trees and animals. As I got into my teens and 20's, I took up outdoor sports, skiing (used to be an instructor), hunting and fishing. Moving around also taught me about Americans (there are many kinds of us, all different, but also all the same).

Anyway, I got into bonsai when I first visited the National Arboretum's collection sometime in the late 80's. I wasn't so much inspired by the "Asian" aspects, as much as I was about the wildness the trees conveyed. They spoke the language of lonely mountaintops, old apple orchards and forests that I spent my childhood wandering around.
Click to expand...

I was first abducted, CE3K, at the age of 7 however my abductors became frustrated with trying to understand me...
and just what was it they had abducted so at the age of 8 they sent me back down to a homeless area of Detroit (story later)...I spent from 7 to 12 years of age traveling the cosmos with my abductors looking for noteworthy abductees as I had been instructing them to do in order to become more universal & intelligent....at age 10 while in a neighboring galaxy we visited a planet named Bonsaiusty, it was there I picked up my skills and knowledge of Plant Gardening under the Tutilidge of Bonsaiusty Master Bono, we exhibited on various nearby planets and became universally recognized as Bonsai Masters and were very much in demand...My abductors tired of this and were ordered to return me to Earth in order to pass my vast knowledge onto the Earthlings.....after escaping my arrival in a homeless area of Detroit I started my formal education of horticulture at UM Ann Arbor then MIT for my PHD, by now I was 16 and entered the retail nursery field in Florida, then California where I was once again abducted but not by the same aliens, if interested I can continue my gardening exploits....also while in CA I tutored several BNutters like Smoke and others....
 
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Bolero said:
Little Dwarf Trees in Ceramic Pots has always fascinated me as an Art form, since the late 1960's....


I was first abducted, CE3K, at the age of 7 however my abductors became frustrated with trying to understand me
Pelikan Souveran R800 Roller Ball Pen with 6 new Pen Refills...
this Pelikan has all the Trade Marks of Pelikan, the green and black striped case, solid black pen cap and bottom, overall length of pen is 5.5"
pelican bill clip, pelican logo on cap top all gold details are 24K Gold, screw on/off cap...pelican west germany printed on the cap band...
The Pelikan 800 is the Pen with the Highest Quality and Craftsmanship of their Line...
the sane aliens
and just what was it they had abducted so at the age of 8 they sent me back down to a homeless area of Detroit (story later)...I spent from 7 to 12 years of age traveling the cosmos with my abductors looking for noteworthy abductees as I had been instructing them to do in order to become more universal & intelligent....at age 10 while in a neighboring galaxy we visited a planet named Bonsaiusty, it was there I picked up my skills and knowledge of Plant Gardening under the Tutilidge of Bonsaiusty Master Bono, we exhibited on various nearby planets and became universally recognized as Bonsai Masters and were very much in demand...My abductors tired of this and were ordered to return me to Earth in order to pass my vast knowledge onto the Earthlings.....after escaping my arrival in a homeless area of Detroit I started my formal education of horticulture at UM Ann Arbor then MIT for my PHD, by now I was 16 and entered the retail nursery field in Florida, then California where I was once again abducted but not by the same aliens, if interested I can continue my gardening exploits....also while in CA I tutored several BNutters like Smoke and others....
Click to expand...
Too bad you have to troll here.
 
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