Thursday, November 28, 2002

The Missing Tree
Every fall the city comes around and examines all the trees that line the street. If they determine one is damaged (disease, age, etc) and has become a falling hazard they spray paint it with a large X and then a few weeks later a crew comes by to remove the tree. Then in the spring the city sends out another crew to plant new trees to replace the ones that were cut down. Anyway, the tree on my neighbours front lawn got marked. I'm not sure why, it didn't look diseased, but was growing very close to some power lines. Two weeks ago the crew came by and chopped it down. When my neighbour came home he just stood in his front lawn for about 10 minutes shaking his head, probably wondering what happened to his tree. We know from past experience he would not have read the note the city would have put in his mailbox. He had some Christmas lights left in the tree from at least 2 years ago. I know this because they were in the tree last Christmas but from what I could tell none of them worked, since he never bothered plugging them in. The city workers took them down and left them in a neat little pile on his lawn. They sit in that same pile today. Even when my stupid neighbour finally got around to raking up his leaves he just raked around the pile of lights. Come December I'm thinking about running over to his house in the middle of the night and plugging them in but just leaving them on the ground where they sit. I would be willing to bet they stay in that pile all winter.

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