Abolish Trees

I’ve had it with trees. Looming over me like a vicious kindergarten teacher who uses their terrifying stature and tyrannical will to get students in line. Is it any wonder that paddles and yard sticks, so long used by lunatic nuns with a hardwood fetish, are carved from fallen trees? They take up space like a capacious high school teacher carrying two full lunch trays of meats and cheeses as a means of getting kids to spread out. And eventually, they keel over without any advanced notice like a drunken college professor, sauced and spent after another afternoon of back bending physical labor to mimic the curious gait of Richard III.  Yes, my life in academia has seen more than its share of towering (and falling) personalities. Imagine how much lower tuition would be if universities concentrated on higher learning instead of how many young saplings belong in the quadrangle.

 

There are politicians who believe that planting trees solves every little problem. Like what to do with that weird sliver of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. They relocate an ounce of dirt with a golden shovel in front of an adoring crowd and seriously think they're making a difference. They promote the unexamined merits of Arbor Day. But no one stops to ask: when is it enough? Trees get a pass. We let pandas in captivity decide if they want their relationship to transition to a more amorous one. But yet, we do the bidding of elms and oaks – the slobbering hand maidens of the arbocracy.    

 

They’ve had a great run. No one can take that away. But what’s the point? The Empire State Building wasn’t constructed to be a tall spike in the middle of Manhattan. There were offices, plenty of space inside send the city into the clouds, maximizing the city’s vertical real estate. Even the Eiffel Tower allows tourists to enjoy it. Trees have no such ability. The occasional elf or squirrel may get in there with birds resting on branches in between flights. But termites are the only ones resembling our national workforce and they lead to ultimate destruction. Shouldn’t that tell us something? That maybe we could use this land for something better. Like a parking lot or bocce court.

 

Trees don’t do anything. They just stand there and, when the time comes, they fall. We are the ones who turn them into credenzas and bureaus, shelves and cutting boards. If they did they on their own, at least I could see keeping them around.

 

Trees kill. Okay? They break, they get struck by lightning. Look, we’re not going to get rid of all of them. Not yet. We still need wood and will for a while. But we can at least get them out of cities and suburbs, giving us all more breathing room. Oxygen may become a problem, but we must have plenty of extra ventilators and tanks just sitting around collecting asbestos. It's time to get them out of storage.

 

Trees have tricked us into celebrating autumn, as we watch them carelessly throwing their leaves on the ground like a spoiled garden brat. Do they pick them up? No. They get us to bag their trash, raking them into piles like a servile barber cleaning up the cut locks of hairy customers. It's all beneath us.

 

It wasn’t always this way. There was a time, not too long ago, when wrapping my arms around a redwood sounded like the American Dream. But I’ve seen too many good people cower under these arrogant psychos lining our thoroughfares and parks. We wait on them hand and foot. Let them rot. 

 

You want more shade? Then wear a hat.