Old Trees and SEC Rednecks

So you want to know what happens when SEC football and some of the oldest and prettiest trees in the state of Alabama collide? You guessed it. The trees get killed.

A certain redneck calling himself "Al from Dadeville" - no, I've never met him, and yes, I'm sure he's a redneck -was unhappy that Auburn beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl this year, so he went to Toomer's Corner in downtown Auburn and poisoned two 130-year-old live oaks with a bunch of herbicides. The trees have been a symbol of Auburn football for generations, and every time the university wins a game, a bunch of excited folks go downtown and roll the trees with toilet paper. (Yes, they roll their own town, and I never understood it either, but that's beside the point.)

Now I don't care a fig about football. Never have. I went to both high school and college in Auburn, and the football hype I grew up around caused me basically to hate it. Consequently, I never keep up with developments in football and in fact only just found out tonight that Auburn won the SEC championship this year. Something I do care about, though, is old trees, especially old trees in Alabama, for an old tree in my home state is sort of like the Holy Grail these days, i.e., dern near impossible to find. Those in charge of the state's forests have been doing some remodeling over the last several decades, and they have come a long way toward realizing their dream of replacing all of the indigenous hardwoods with neat rows of scrawny little loblollies that look like decorative toothpicks.

So I'm bummed. Two of the oldest trees left in the town have been killed, maliciously and calculatedly, by a moron who's football team lost.

Now look, guys, I hate to say this, but I have to. The city of Auburn, the university, the fans - most of them have no legitmate right to feel vicimized by this. The only reason those two gorgeous trees made it this long was that they were tied up with a longstanding football tradition (the toilet paper thing); otherwise, they'd have been knocked over to make way for a gas station or a bank a long time ago. Auburn is notoriously unrestrained when it comes to bulldozing landmarks, old bohemian neighborhoods, fields, babbling brooks, you name it; consequently, the "lovliest village on the plains" is quickly becoming the tackiest.

One of the last times I was there (I don't go back often, precisely for this reason), one of the oldest apartment complexes in the town, where my wife and I lived for four years with three of our four kids, was torn down. This place really had character: window units, outdoor clothes lines, massive old sycamores, Koreans and Indians with gardens right outside their back doors. But when I drove by the place, it was just clean gone - sycamores, Koreans, and all. There was nothing but a big fence and a bulldozer. And when I drove by it again a few months later, lo and behold a miracle of modern architecture, a three-story plywood cathedral of an apartment complex with college students driving Hummers around in the parking lot. That's one of the saddest stories for me personally, but they could be multiplied. I watched the city systematically defile itself in this way for years before I finally moved out of there.

But so back to the trees. Naturally everyone is mourning them, and each in his own way. Me, for instance, I'll probably write an extraordinarily bad poem and try to play something mournful on the guitar. As for the city, I'm not sure about this, but I think they had a formal something or other that involved everyone going down there and rolling the trees one more time for old time sake. Of course, they'll have to use a firehose to blow all that toilet paper off of them, which makes it less likely that the work being done to save the trees will actually succeed, but hey. Whatever gets you through it.

Word to my homey Geoff. He still lives near Auburn, and I know he feels it like I do. We'll tend them back to health in the eschaton, my brother. You can show me how.