Matthew Reed wrote:

snip excellent advice from several people

Ahh...much more good advice, but it does bring up one more question. This
tree once sprawled with very long branches. The guy that had the property
before me butchered it back, and now it have these very thick 12" or so
branches that leave the main trunk and go about 15 feet or more, and stop
because he cut them all off. From these is a lot of new growth sprawling all
over. I should take som pics of inside the canopy so you can see what I'm
describing.

Aside from not looking very nice, I don't think this stubby growth pattern
seems
to have damaged the tree. You could encourage these branches to grow a new
'leader' by pruning off the smaller branches and selecting the biggest and
strongest
for that purpose.

Also, two main branches that are over 12" thick all but cross
each other. I could cut one off, but it's quite large and would leave a big
scar - again let me see if I can get some pics so this makes more sense.

I think it might be too late to fix that problem. Cutting off such a large
branch
could do more harm than good.

The
challenge here is that this is a big tree and the branches themselves as
they branch from the main trunk are over very thick. I think the main trunk
itself is easily 36" diameter. Hmm...tomorrow I'll measure it and take pics
and post links to them here so you can see what I'm describing.

If the branches are growning too tightly together, you could cut some of
them off,
especially the ones growing towards the center of the tree. Don't take off
too much
wood in one season. Check the web for info on how to prune to decide where
to
make your cuts, and in what fashion.

It's a big
beautiful tree, and I'm willing to invest some time and effort to save it.
It gives a lot of shade, and there is a rope swing on one of the branches
that my girls love (should this be removed so it doesn't damage the limb any
more then it has?).

Keep an eye on the attachment points that they are not cutting through the
bark. You may
want to add some padding at the attachement points to distribute the load.

Sherwin