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2024 is, no doubt, a bumper crop of the magical trees.

Let Georgia have peach trees and Missouri the dogwood, even the Cherry trees which are celebrated around DC. Ahh yes, but the Magnolia, nothing else will make one sigh like a Magnolia, so says this Mississippian.

I am so, so proud when I drive Interstate 20/59 and enter the state from Alabama, to gaze upon the majestic Magnolias, one after the other, especially when all in bloom, and enjoy the calming aroma that says I have arrived home, home to the Magnolia State.

Before I knew really anything about a Magnolia tree, there was one right outside my grandmother’s kitchen window, and it was good for climbing. My cousin, Joann and I scooted to the very top while grandmother yelled out the kitchen window, right above the kitchen sink. “You girls better get down before you break a leg.”

Why did grandmothers worry about broken legs, I wondered then? I know now. But it seemed she saw danger everywhere.

But the Magnolia’s branches are wide and supportive, we kids discovered. Wide enough to rock our baby-dolls or have a tea party. And on another day, we would fashion a horse bridle and ride the afternoon away telling each other stories with ideas of wagon trains and Indians on spotted horses.

We also enjoyed a pretend kitchen on the Magnolia limb, where we sold lemonade and pretend cookies but the lemonade was real, carefully hoisted up the tree branch with help from grandmother.

There were times I was invited to spend-the-night with my cousins (poor grandmother) and two of us placed blankets around the tree’s trunk and fashioned tents and slumber parties. Well, we could have spent the night, but Grandmother had us inside by 6 p.m.

“You girls,” she would say.

And another day. “Watch yourselves,” she would shout, when the two of us took off on our roller skates down 16th Street which had the steepest hill in the entire area, but we whizzed by her anyway.

I am certain Joann and I put 90% of the gray hair in her permanent waved hair. Oh, we were dare-devils, we two. Now Joann’s older sister, Donna just stood to the side and watched. She watched with a wide grin upon her face. Maybe she wanted to join us but then she was an obedient child.

But the Magnolia then was a beacon. Yes, a beacon for two little girls who wanted to peer over the top of the world, but today, the Magnolia tree is a symbol of everything sweet about Mississippi. Especially when the year’s growth is especially robust and the blooms seem like the Milky Way, high in the Universe, and the intense glossy green of the leaves, perhaps, well, could be fashioned into a nice pair of patent-leather shoes. (Only a woman would think so).

As we Mississippians continue to enjoy all of our assets, let each lawn sport a Magnolia Tree. Allow the limbs to support little children the opportunity to climb and discover the world.

Anne McKee is a Mississippi-inspired writer and storyteller. She is executive director of Meridian Railroad Museum. See her website: www.annemckeestoryteller.com