Ain’t That A Shame
There’s a certain tree company – and I don’t recall which one it is, but they know who they are – that left piles of cut tree limbs alongside Crest Forest Drive between Top Town Crestline and Skyland Drive nearly two months ago. And guess what? You said “goodbye” and the limbs are still there.
Didn’t your mama teach you to pick up after yourself? She must have not raised you right – shame on you!
“You made me cry when you said goodbye, ain’t that a shame. My tears fell like rain, ain’t that a shame, you’re the one to blame.” (“Ain’t That A Shame” – Fats Domino – 1955)
Other tree companies, who listened to their mamas, had the common decency to clean up their messes in a timely manner. They put a smile on my face, even though you can’t see it because of the facemask. But you, yes you, broke my heart, ain’t that a shame?
“You broke my heart when you said we’ll part, ain’t that a shame. My tears fell like rain, ain’t that a shame, you’re the one to blame.”
All of the tree companies – even the bad one – are doing a remarkable job of removing hazardous trees and tree limbs that pose an extreme risk of igniting a calamitous wildfire should they fall and land on one of Southern California Edison’s powerlines. However, they sometimes go a little overboard in removing trees and limbs that don’t actually pose a risk.
Take, for example, the tree company that had marked one of my majestic cedar trees for extinction, when all that was necessary was the removal of a 10-foot segment at the very top of the 100-year-old, 80-foot-high tree, which had been riddled with woodpecker holes and was dead as a doornail and could have fallen across one of Edison’s powerlines.
Edison’s representative harassed me and my wife for six months with threats to remove the entire tree and we kept telling them it wasn’t necessary to cut down the whole dang tree, just the dead segment at the top.
“Well, I’ll have to inform my supervisor,” they kept telling us. But they wouldn’t take no for an answer; they just kept coming back every couple of weeks to tell us they were going to cut down the tree and we would once again tell them “No.”
Then, one day a few months ago, they sent out an arborist who agreed with us that it wasn’t necessary to remove the entire tree and that it would be a shame to destroy such a beautiful tree when all that was necessary was to remove one dead segment at the top.
And, really, none of our mountain’s beautiful trees would need to be cut down had Edison buried its powerlines underground, like they do in communities throughout Southern California.
“Oh well goodbye, although I’ll cry, ain’t that a shame. My tears fell like rain, ain’t that a shame, you’re the one to blame.”
Keep it flyin’ Uncle Mott