Hvar’s hurrah for Maine maple

When I caught up recently with the irrepressible Ben Hvar, I expected to hear he was busy adding yet another colorful chapter to the curious odyssey that’s been his life.

Hvar’s life has been one long attempt to resist anything that could be considered routine. The former Old Orchard Beach motel owner has been an ice dancer at Madison Square Garden and a cruise-ship entertainer. He once crashed his airplane during a trans-Atlantic race and then posed in front of the wreckage in a tuxedo, a bit of derring-do that got him a lot of publicity in the British newspapers. In his days as a paratrooper, his parachute failed once and he plunged 1,250 feet onto a sand hill, breaking 40 bones, blowing out his eardrums and ending his Army career. He got into the “Guinness Book of World Records,” too, when he rode a lawn mower from Maine to California in 1969 to honor the American troops in Vietnam. During the years of fighting in the Balkans, he rumbled over bombed-out roads in toy-filled trucks each Christmas to play Santa to the war-orphaned children. Eventually, he changed his last name from Garcia to Hvar in honor of the Croatian island that was his second home.

With all that behind him, there was no reason to think he had quit his quixotic ways simply because he was 65 years old, with one lung and a seriously damaged heart. And he hadn’t, as I learned from a story about him in Florida’s Tampa Tribune, the most recent entry to his bulging scrapbooks of press clippings from around the world. The story told of Hvar’s latest patriotic quest to have a five-foot Maine maple sapling recognized as the All-American National Thanksgiving Tree and get it planted on the White House lawn.

His leafy legacy started out as a plan for his own burial. A few years back, while anticipating his death after yet another bout of heart problems, Hvar decided he wanted to be buried on his beloved Croatian island, but on American soil. So he asked the governors of all 50 states and the representatives of five U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. to send him a pound of their native soils. He even supplied the baggies. Nearly two years later, he had his all-American soil, along with dozens of newspaper stories and a spot on Paul Harvey’s radio program. But he became so moved by his fertile bounty that he changed his burial plans and germinated a new use for the soil. Two years ago, he planted a Maine maple seed in the mix and proudly watched it grow into his vision of a true historic sapling – the country’s first genuine national tree. He has since carted the tree to every state and U.S. territory, logging about 100,000 miles in his three-year campaign.

“It’s been on Greyhound, Amtrak, commercial and military aircraft, cars and trucks,” Hvar said during a stopover in New Hampshire. “Wherever I go – ground zero, everywhere – people see the tree and tell me it should be planted on the White House lawn. The tree belongs to everyone.”

Also with him on his journeys is a 5-by-9-foot flag adorned with small, glass vials, each representing a state and its native soil. After the tragedy of Sept. 11, which he still cannot speak of without choking up, Hvar intends to affix to the flag enough vials to hold the name of every victim of the attacks.

While the White House has yet to respond to his requests to have the all-American tree planted on the grounds, Hvar said he has no intention of giving up his dream.

“Some people might think it’s a crazy thing to do,” he said, “but mostly the response has been overwhelming. Everyone gathers around the tree and wants to touch and caress the flag. I tell them they’re holding all of America in their hands.”