We love trees. So why isn't Arbor Day a bigger deal?

Happy Arbor Day! Did it sneak up on you, again? Or are you ready with the... well, not a lot to do on Arbor Day. No gifts to give, no cards to send. No parties to throw unless you're a municipality, and even then, they celebrate by doing the same thing they do all year long: put a few trees in the ground. It's like treating your wife to dinner at home and a TV show for her birthday.

It doesn't make sense. Love is elusive, fleeting, heartbreaking, yet Valentine's Day is huge. Trees are everywhere, permanent, uplifting. Yet we give them the cold shoulder. Why isn't Arbor Day a bigger deal?

"That's a really good question," said David Horvath, a certified arborist with The Davey Tree Expert Company. "It doesn't get much mention in the media. You guys aren't reporting on it."

Oh right. Our fault. Maybe so. This is my first Arbor Day column in 30 years. Horvath must have detected my air of injury, because he mused that lack of attention might be a good thing.

"We're doing a pretty good job, preserving trees," he said. "We don't have a lot of news stories about hundreds of acres being clear cut."

Not yet. That may be coming, with the Trump administration dismantling the U.S. Forest Service and going gaga for logging.

It's a good time to reaffirm our love of trees. Trees are cool, and very Chicago. How so? For starters, we have a direct, familial link to Arbor Day: J. Sterling Morton, who created Arbor Day in 1872 as a way to forest treeless Nebraska. Fifty years later, his son Joy Morton, founder of Morton Salt, created the Morton Arboretum on his country estate in west suburban Lisle.

Arbor Day was a state-by-state affair until 1970, when Richard Nixon established National Arbor Day as the last Friday in April (though states still celebrate at peak planting times. Texas Arbor Day is the first Friday in November).

The city of Chicago has an estimated 3.5 million trees, and I wish I could tell you a dozen tree stories. Space limits us to one. In 1972, students voted for an Illinois state tree. The white oak won. At Austin High School, however, students disagreed, pooled their money — each chipped in a penny — and bought a black oak, which they planted in the school courtyard. "The black student body felt a closer identification with this type of oak," the Chicago Daily News helpfully explained. (The tree, alas, is no longer there, according to the Chicago Public Schools. "No sign of the black oak tree," said Ben Pagani, of CPS, who added engineers were sent to scope out the situation).

"Trees are really important to our humanity, they're part of our civil identity, our health," said Horvath. "So many memories of trees, with family members. A very important fixture in our lives and memories."

So how to celebrate? Check online for events near you. Apple cider seems appropriate. If you've got space, grab a free sapling being handed out and give it a home. If you don't have a yard, a pot will suffice for a time — for several years I had a gorgeous Chicago hardy fig growing in our dining room, until my wife banished it to the yard. Careful mulching and burlap screening got it through its first winter; I wasn't quite so thorough for the second, and am still waiting to see if it's alive.

Or figure out what your favorite tree is. Horvath plumped for sugar maple — good choice. I flew the flag for ginkgo biloba — I planted one in my front yard. A gorgeous tree, glossy, fan-shaped leaves, a favorite of Frank Lloyd Wright. Male of course — you didn't know, did ya, that some trees have males, producing pollen, and females, producing seeds or fruit? The females are messy (don't blame me, I'm just the reporter). Female ginkgos stink.

"I honestly don't think it's so horrid," said Horvath. "And a female ginkgo's leaves get this beautiful gold color."

Planting a male ginkgo is not always a safe bet because — and keep this in mind next time someone starts prattling on about bathrooms — a male ginkgo tree will sometimes switch over to being female, at least a branch or two, if no lady ginkgos are around to pollinate with. Other ginkgos take 20 or 30 years to decide if they're boys or girls. So nature has her thumb on the scale in this debate.

Back to Arbor Day, an increasingly important celebration of what matters.

"Other holidays repose upon the past," J. Sterling Morton said. "Arbor Day proposes for the future."

If we're to have one, we need to start thinking, about trees, and creating a world that nurtures them.