If you haven’t read Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree” by now, you should. It’s simple enough: boy meets tree, tree loves boy; tree gives life and limb for boy’s enjoyment, enterprise and final epitaph.
Silverstein’s simple language and line drawings aside, the single most impressive aspect of this narrative: it’s told from the tree’s perspective.
Trees are living, breathing entities. Some of them have, after all, been on this Earth far longer than we have. Remember The Lorax, created by Dr. Seuss, who would have turned 111 on March 2? “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to be better. It’s not,” he said.
This week concerned residents of the singularly spectacular street on South Harbor Island named for its dense canopy of live oak trees, Live Oak Drive, are making their voices heard.
The all-powerful power company is about to trim trees for the protection of the power line along the Causeway and South Harbor Island.
Not all, but some of those who love the tree canopy on Wrightsville understandably live on this median-divided lane engulfed by treasured mature live oak trees, alive with a variety of prized birds and small mammals that have found homes in among this spectacular alley of trees.
Residents and town officials are wise to be proactively on the defensive; Duke is known far and wide for its sheer brutality when trimming trees. It is more often slaughter.
Landmark trees hold special meaning for the many who measure the passage of time in their timbers — may they be the artists who walk among us seeing the world through unvarnished eyes, or poets with creative license who hear the trees talk to them, simple old saps who use trees for a soap box for lamenting all of society’s ills, or simply an admiring neighbor. It is hard not to enjoy the gift of a tree.
This week the grand old oak on Market Street, which the asphalt took a curve to miss near Sonic, was cut down at the hands of the DOT.
I would wager the dear departed tree fits all descriptions herein as outlined by the city’s Heritage Tree Program, dedicated to the identification and preservation of heritage trees within the City of Wilmington, North Carolina: Heritage trees are those, which because of their age, rarity, grouping, overall beauty or historical significance represent an important aspect of the City’s history or natural landscape.
Bravo, sounds good on paper, so, what happened? The city holds public workshops for the kind of park we want at its the north end. One thing everyone agrees on in a park is a shade tree or two.
Why then was there no public workshop about this Market Street Heritage Tree? Or was there and we missed it? Ack, it’s too late now. The tree is history.
We can take but little solace in times such as these that draw the expert and naïve, the impassioned and the I-don’t-cares out of the woodwork and into the court of public opinion. Facebook comments on the death of the Sonic Oak were prolific.
The names are removed to share some of the choicest of the more than 10,000 viewpoints on the demise of this tree:
They’d be better off dozing that Sonic and going around the tree . . .
Yes! Doze the Sonic!
Don’t stop at dozing the Sonic. Leave the tree and take out that whole eyesore of a dilapidated strip mall.
The one nice thing about Market Street was that tree.
Wilmington used to be such a nice place.
I remember in 1988 a guy lived in an Oak Tree on Oleander to stop DOT. It worked and I believe those trees are still there by Bradley Creek.
In front of Salt Works 2 someone did that.
Poor tree.
How old is that tree? Older than the road I bet.
Can we not move it to a better location?
Kerr Ave expansion? It’s not even close to Kerr? There is a shopping center, some volleyball courts and two or three restaurants between this tree and Kerr Avenue.
These old oaks are so beautiful and have survived so much. Then along comes man.
Who is the idiot that signed off on this? Obviously no one wants it cut down!
That’s too bad. Survived all the hurricanes and probably the Civil War.
Go anywhere in the U.S. and you see the exact same chain stores, gas stations and food places.
Same crowd would fine a small business thousands of dollars for removing a scrub pine too.
I agree that this is terrible! The N.C. State Dept. of Transportation is doing this, not local officials.
LOVE THE TREE!!!
Leave the tree.
Thank you beautiful tree.
I can’t believe they are getting rid of the only attractive thing on Market Street.
What a terrible shame. Remember this come election time, folks!
That tree was there when Market Street was a dirt road!!!
They probably need wood to stoke a furnace at the Titan plant.
Maybe if we lower the gas tax, NC DOT would not have so much $$$$$$$$ to use to destroy public vistas.
I’m feeling less bad about leaving Wilmington to continue my career in film. It’s changing for the worse all the time.
One commenter draws our attention to the next county tree fight in Ogden where an entire grove of oaks are imperiled by a proposed supermarket on Middle Sound Loop.
Regardless of what happens in the city and county, in the town of Wrightsville Beach, the live oak trees lining the streets require protection, despite the proximity to the power lines, or the authority by which the power company’s subcontractors wield the chain saws.
Once the chain saws are cranked and running is not the time to make objections or voices heard. Now is.
Who will speak for the trees?
