Powerman 50,000

Across the street at my first house I remember the old couple had this huge front yard tree. The Zimmerman's were a fine, upstanding Christian couple, he a minister in his early years. I suppose I will be rude about it...there aren't any Christian environmentalists...he had the tree chopped down one day, out of the blue -- it had to have been there for at least 25 years, based on its size, and I probably think more like 30 years.

I came home one day to see this tree being mulched, and stunned I asked the old man why. He was tired of the bugs that the tree 'produced'; not getting in the house, but getting on him between the house and his truck. That was it...not roots tearing up the sidewalk or lawn, or it was rotten and threatened the house, or that he needed fuel for the hearth, or that there was sap or aphid shit on his truck...but some bugs that dangled from the branches and he couldn't take it.

Dale and Jeannie, next door to him, also couldn't believe it. Worse for them, the full power of the afternoon sun now beamed on their southern exposure that for years was shaded.

I'm going to guess that if he lived on 41st street and Folsom, among the huge formal sycamores, it'd be illegal to chop it down. The couple died a few years back. That tree would have still been there if not for this insane act, still shading the houses, still providing some sort of cover for mockingbirds, squirrels, and yes, bugs.

I lament the loss of that tree more than the passing of that couple. A perfect example of man's domination over earth's natural resources run amok. We are still doing it today...let's raze the equivalent of two Belgiums to grow algae in the tropics to produce fuel. It's interesting today, today! the debate over bio-fuels, and how there are some decrying the conversion of food to fuel in the current economic environment. Not 500 days ago the economic environment was 'favorable.' Now it's not? Just five hundred days later? What about 5,000 days from now? 50,000?

We are going to reverse course a thousand times between now and some ambiguous future date when we live sustainably. One way of the other, the end result is the same, but for now, we've somehow collectively made the decision that the raping of Mother Earth is inevitable, so she should just relax and enjoy it.

My guess is, that 50,000 days from now, a couple living in Sacramento will learn to live with bugs, like people who lived in Sacramento 50,000 days ago.