Man plants a hundred giant sequoias to commemorate a beloved fallen tree
What would you do if the city council ordered the killing of a tree you planted with your own hands 30 years ago, and then made you pay for it?
A man from Redondo Beach, California went through exactly that. He is a professional arborist, an expert in cultivating, managing and studying trees. He loves trees with all his heart, considering them the most beautiful, magnificent and ancient living things on this planet.
Yet just three years earlier, he and his beloved tree suffered a major blow. The Redondo Beach City Council sentenced a 30-year-old pepper tree of his to death, because its roots had grown into the sidewalk in front of his door. After the council noticed the problem, they issued a removal permit for the tree. On top of that, they demanded that the man pay for all of it, including the sidewalk costs and the labour fee for cutting down the tree.
The man loved Clyde (the tree) so much that he had always cared for it meticulously, loosening its soil, watering it, and when it was still small and too weak to support itself, he even made it a cane to lean on. He watched it grow little by little, and it accompanied him for nearly half his life. And as he gradually grew old, this companionship in his remaining years seemed all the more precious. He had thought that Clyde would live well in this world until after his own death, but who could have expected that one day he would have to witness Clyde's death with his own eyes.
The man could not accept Clyde leaving just like that. In an open letter to the mayor, he wrote: "Mayor Steve Aspel, you killed my child. You will pay for this. Two years and seven months ago, I secretly planted 45 California redwoods and 82 giant sequoias in various parks, vacant lots and government offices in your city. By now their roots underground should be 30 feet long, and they have already deeply embedded themselves in the soil. You may have noticed the tree at your council entrance, or the new tree growing in your backyard - that is a giant sequoia, and over the next few months they will grow astonishingly fast."
"You killed my Clyde, but I have replaced it with more than a hundred trees. They will grow very, very large. Within a few years, they will exceed 100-300 feet, and they will live more than 2,500 years. That is longer than the time since Jesus was born. Now it will cost you 1,500 US dollars to remove each tree, and the bill will be handed to you, just as you did to me 3 years ago."
"Have a nice day, and may your city forever be full of big trees. May Clyde rest in peace."
FR:http://www.boredpanda.com/giant-sequoia-tree-mayor-revenge-story/