Unique tables come with social 'history' of trees

They could have ended up as firewood or sawdust but felled trees in the Dutch city of Utrecht are getting a second life as one-of-a-kind tables, each with a booklet of stories by people who saw them grow.

One tree was traced back more than three centuries. Others were the scene of an elderly man's first kiss - years before - with his future wife, or where a mother saw her son take his first steps.

"With every tree taken out, there's always a bit of the history of a neighborhood or street that gets lost with it," Egbert Boerma of the historic city's Tafelboom (Dutch for "table tree") Association said. "We aim to keep some of that history," he said.