Are We Big Or Small? Druids Without Fluids

You can tell you are (probably) from a small town when a tree dies and it makes the headlines in the local newspaper.

PASTE from news source:
The Lake Meredith National Recreations Area’s well-known “Big Tree” has fallen. Due to the years of vandalism and repeated fires, the cottonwood tree was severely damaged, hollow, and unstable.
END of paste

I liked the use of the word "repeated": repeated fires

Arson? Camping? Firewood?

I have lived in this area more than three decades and never heard of this famous tree. [Update: my wife has lived here twenty years longer than me and had never heard of this tree either.]

We live in a part of the world that is not known for trees, getting about twenty inches of rain per year. This tree lived near the largest reservoir of the area but which finds itself dying as well. Note: Average year. But this last year was a scorching tree killing year. It picked a good year to go.

I plan to revive my plans to start another blog dedicated to the pursuit of finding the ugliest tree in Texas. It will be a contest. I had started it over in MySpace just about the time I stopped using their service on a regular basis. I think I had one good entry.

So this answers the ancient philosophical question: If a tree falls in a National Recreational Area and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?

Answer: Yes, later in a newspaper where its black and white and read all over. And still later when it induces the big sound of chain saws and the small sound of crackling in a fireplace.

Small town, big tree.