I took a trip down Memory Lane today and, as it turned out, this Memory Lane was tree-lined. Allow me to explain.

On Arbor Day some 44 years ago, a Forest Service employee came to my Northwood Elementary School class to talk to us about trees. I can’t remember much of what he said but, at the end of his talk, he handed each of us a sapling Sequoiadendron giganteum to take home and plant. I distinctly remember clutching the Sequoiadendron (otherwise known as the giant sequoia) in my hand as I rode my bicycle home that spring afternoon.

Although the giant sequoia will grow to more than 300 feet tall and live, literally, for thousands of years, the tree I took home on my bicycle 44 years ago was about 8 inches tall, its roots held protectively in a small plastic bag.

When I got home, I immediately planted the tree in our backyard — using a kitchen spoon, no less. I tamped the soil down around the roots, formed a little dike around the root ball (as my father had repeatedly shown me) and gave it good drink of water.

In recollecting the scene so many years later, I remember that I was infected with a sense of urgency to get that small, living thing planted. It seemed a major accomplishment that the tree not only survived whatever rigors it took to get it to our fifth-grade classroom, but had also endured a long, windy, bumpy bicycle ride home. I felt responsible for the tree, and it seemed imperative that it should be planted as quickly as possible in a spot where, hopefully, it could grow and thrive. I admit, however, that after it was planted, I looked at the scrawny little thing and had some serious doubts about its chances of survival.

One Sunday, several years after I had planted the tree, my grandparents came for their weekly visit from San Francisco. After lunch, it was my Finnish grandfather’s custom to take off his double-breasted suit coat, undo his tie, take off his starched white shirt, and lead me into the backyard for a little physical exertion in the form of gardening. By then a teenager, I thought it was more than a little strange that this man, my grandfather, would choose to garden in his athletic T-shirt, polished black shoes and Sunday suit pants — gold watch chain dangling — but follow I did.

Thirty years as a sea captain had diminished neither his ability to command nor his accent: “This tree here,” he decreed, pointing to my giant sequoia, which was now taller than us both, “has been planted in the wrong place.”

The tree had, in fact, been planted far too close to our neighbor’s fence. But at least it was still alive, I thought to myself. The command to “go and get the shovels” could not be disobeyed.

We spent most of the afternoon digging a huge hole where the sequoia would go. We spent the rest of the day digging and dragging that tree to its new location. Once in place, I again firmed the soil down around the roots, only this time I had to crawl under the lowest branches of the tree to do so. I then built another dike around the root ball, just as my grandfather told me to do, complete with step-by-step instructions. (Was this the source, I wondered, where my father learned all about gardening? It was then that it occurred to me that my father had a father, too!) With that thought in mind, as the late afternoon turned to early evening, I dragged the hose out back and gave the tree its first drink in its new home.

My grandfather put his shirt, tie, double-breasted suit coat and hat back on, gathered my grandmother, shook my hand ceremoniously and drove off. And although I was a little sick at heart when he left, thinking that such a big tree would never survive transplanting so late in life, the tree did, indeed, survive.

Today, I went back to the old neighborhood to see if my giant sequoia was still standing. And yes, it was a bit of a thrill when I rounded the corner and saw it behind the house, pushing up into the sky, now some 90 feet tall, in the exact place where my grandfather and I planted it.

I took a few minutes to tour Young Avenue, Newark and Jomar drives and, to my surprise, spotted more than 20 giant sequoias, no doubt planted by my fifth-grade classmates (names flooding back: Jonathan Windham, Kathy Hall, Jim Brown — where are they now?), some in front yards, others peeking above roof lines from the backyards of two-story houses.

It made me wonder: A thousand or so years from now, when all the houses are gone, will my old neighborhood be the home of a state park, graced by 300-foot-tall giant sequoias? Will future folks wonder how they got there?

The moral of the story is this: If you want to be remembered, plant a tree. Better yet, grab a kid and plant a tree together. Plant it in your backyard. Or the school yard. Or replace a missing street tree on your block. Be assured that spending the few minutes it takes to plant a tree is at once a small and a great thing to do.

And don’t forget to make that dike around the root ball!

Author A. Cort Sinnes is a Napa native and has written more than 30 books on gardening.

The giant sequoia

Giant sequoia is the world’s largest tree in terms of total volume. They grow to an average height of 150-280 feet and 16-23 feet in diameter. Record trees have been reported to be 307 feet in height and 29 feet in diameter. The oldest known giant sequoia based on ring count is 3,200 years old.

John Muir wrote of the species in about 1870: “Do behold the King Sequoia! Behold! Behold! Seems all I can say. Some time ago I left all for Sequoia and have been and am at his feet, fasting and praying for light, for is he not the greatest light in the woods, in the world? Where are such columns of sunshine, tangible, accessible, terrestrialized?”