Thursday, June 24, 2010

A Shagbark Hickory and Grinding Bureacracy

Most of the trees in my neighborhood leafed early this year.  It was a warm spring.  Because I live in a neighborhood of homes built mostly in the late 1920s and 1930s, the trees; sugar maples, oaks, silver leaf maples, a few surviving Dutch elms, an occasional black walnut, white and Norwegian pines, cottonwoods, amongest others; have stature and they exude a majestic presence.

One tree, seven houses down the street from me, though, a shagbark hickory, appeared as if it had given up its ghost.  It stood amongest its already fully leafed relations like a leper, its leafless branches scratching the sky, and so the city, in its infinite wisdom, marked it with a hot pink stripe round its shaggy bark trunk.  The hot pink stripe denotes the shagbark hickory’s imminent removal by the city, it has been deemed undesirable.

When I first noted the hot pink stripe of death on the trunk of the tree, as I was walking my critter, I was bummed.  Over the past eighteen years I had admired the tree and its prolific output of nuts.  In the Fall, the tree would attact fox and red squirrels from throughout the neighborhood to the feast, and I could hear them squabbling over one nut amongest hundreds from my front porch.  Anyway, upon first noting the hot pink stripe of death on my walk, as I passed under the tree, wondering how the tree could have up and died since presenting its bounty to the squirrels last Fall, I peered up into the tree’s gnarly and apparently lifeless limbs and noted a plethora of tiny buds, and I said to myself, this tree isn’t dead, why has the city marked it for removal?

This all occurred five or six weeks ago, and since that time, the tree has fully leafed and flowered, proving to all its vim and vigor, albeit slowly displayed in comparsion to its neighboring tree relations, and so I figured that the city would grant the tree a reprieve, and ignore its hot pink stripe of death.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Last night, as I was walking, I was finally able to speak with the neighbor in front of whose home the shagbark hickory stands.  I asked him what was up with the tree, noting its late leafing out, its current vigor, wondering out loud why in the world the city was going to cut it down.  Here’s what I found out.

The city, at this point, is still determined to cut down this vigorous shagbark hickory, against my neighbor’s wishes, unless the neighbor provides the city with proof that the tree is healthy, as if its now fully leafed out branches are some sort of illusion.  So I asked him, if the city cannot see for themselves that the tree is healthy and vigorous by looking at it in its current state of leafiness, what type of proof is the city requesting before they issue a reprieve?

My neighbor informed me that he is having to pay a tree specialist, from Michigan State University, sixty-five bucks to come out and evaluate the tree’s physical well being.  If the tree passes its physical, my neighbor must then present said certificate of health to the city prior to the city issuing a reprieve from the chain saw.

This is ridiculous, and is just one more piece of evidence of the grinding bureacracy Americans face on a daily basis in order to accomplish the smallest of tasks.  I’m no tree hugger, but I swear if I see the city down the street revving chain saws to wield against this tree, I’m going to hug that damn tree.

Posted by John Venlet on 06/24 at 06:59 AM
(4) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages