Day 230
I am sickened and saddened, once again. A week full of tears and anguish. Not good.
This morning, as the buzz saws worked their way into my dreams, I awoke knowing what was going on …
My neighbor’s tree was being cut down.
And, that in itself is horrible when it’s a healthy tree. But this wasn’t just a healthy tree … this was a gigantic, towering 80+ foot, 100+ year old oak tree. Its canopy easily spanning 50 feet.
I am sickened. I am saddened. And I’m so mad I could spit.
I’m not mad at my neighbor. I’m mad at my town. My new town. The town my parents live in. The town I have grown to love, over the years, because of its trees.
On my list of “wants” when moving, one of the things listed was … a town with a lot of big, old trees. Park Ridge has them. Or at least it used to. In last week’s local paper there was an article about how this town, a “Tree City USA” town was losing its trees to disease and how the city was “doing everything in its power to retain our magnificent old trees.”
Yeah right.
I moved from Colorado where nature is practically considered sacred. We cherish the trees we have because we know someone once planted them. Denver is a high desert. Trees don’t grow naturally there. We value the land. We take care of it.
This city has an ordinance that does not allow pick up trucks to be parked on the streets. I think the ordinance went into effect to deter people’s old jalopies back in the 40’s from becoming permanent fixtures on the roadways. Nowadays almost every other vehicle is a van or truck. My neighbor has both.
My neighbor also lives in what this area is called … the Southwest Woods. So, obviously we have trees. Lots of trees, big old oak trees. We live in a hardwood forest. People choose to live here. We are lucky to live with such beauty.
My neighbor down the street has a cottage-type home, similar to mine. He has lived here more than 60 years. He said when he moved in there were 3 houses in the forest … his, mine and another one that has since been replaced.
In any case … over the years developers moved in and built up around and under the trees as much as possible. My neighbor’s home had a 2-car garage added within the last 10 years. And since one of the big trees was “in the way” … instead of cutting it down, they worked around it. They made the driveway narrower to accommodate a car and a half. The problem is, my neighbor doesn’t have half a car. He has a truck. A nice, green, very clean truck that is parked on the street from about 6:30 pm until about 8 am on most days.
The neighbors across the street don’t seem to mind – it’s a cemetery. I’m the only one on this street who can see that truck … if I stand in my bedroom, and crane my neck so that my binoculars can see through the foliage to make out the shape of a truck. Or at most … the front bumper of what might be a truck. Obviously, it’s not bothering me either. We don’t get much traffic. So, why was this such a big deal to the city? I have no idea … but my neighbor has received several tickets for parking his truck on the street over the past few weeks.
You might ask – why don’t they park in the garage? Both vehicles don’t fit and it’s a matter of getting the baby and toddler into the van without having to lug everyone and everything associated with a toddler and baby out to the curb for her to load them into her vehicle on busy, work-day mornings when it’s so much easier to pop them into the van right out their back door.
In any case … the city wouldn’t give him a variance (although there are plenty of OTHER trucks parked on the streets in our area) and instead told him he needed to cut down his tree and park his truck in his driveway. For a city “doing everything in its power to retain our magnificent old trees” … all I can say is, actions speak louder than words. What a bunch of hypocrites.
And, so, not only does my neighbor have to spend the money putting in a new extended driveway and the cost incurred from having the tree cut down … but a beautiful old tree on his property, that shaded his basketball games with his son, that shaded the backyard for the play set and patio, that provided nests for the local squirrels, birds and bugs is now gone. And our landscape has changed.
I went out and talked to the guys cutting it down today. They were as sickened as I was … they kept saying it was a beautiful, healthy tree. None of us understood why this was happening.
I’m writing a letter to the editor of our town paper entitled “Good-bye Old Timer”. You can count on it.