Wishing Tree

A rite of passage that many teens undertake is making a wish at the wishing tree. Outside the bounds of the state park is a gnarled and twisted pine, trunk bent almost into a spiral like a gigantic bonsai, yet still taller than most of its surrounding relatives. Bottles and vials tied to the branches hang down, filled with bits of paper. Names and initials carved into the bark dot the tree, the scars of young love making a record lasting for eternity.   Wishes, hopes, and fears are written onto scraps of paper, sealed in glass and given to the tree. People don't know when the tradition started, but the superstition is older than the town. New couples sometimes go to the Wishing Tree to carve their initials, hoping to seal their lasting love in the sap of the ancient pine. Local legend has it that the higher you can place your initials, the longer your love will last.   Though no one has taken credit, it is thought that someone must occasionally take down the bottles with wishes in them, or the branches would have been weighed down over the years. But the loss of bottles seems random: some are present for decades, others weeks at most. Some claim that their bottle disappeared when their wish came true, though these claims can never really be verified.