SAVING THE TREE

Hi, I'm Bo Lumpkin and I've been thinkin'
If there is something that really sets you off and gets your dander up you had better keep it to yourself because some people like to see folks get riled up. The town council decided to cut the big sweetgum tree that is in the little park downtown. Every time a storm comes up some of the limbs and branches get blown off and it makes the park look awful messy until the youth group over at the church gets together to clean it up. In the fall the sweetgum balls fall all over the park and when you mow the grass everyone in town has to stay clear to keep the mower from braining them with a sweetgum ball.
Word got out that they intended to cut down the tree and Lonzo's girl Clymenestra, wanting to become an activist, felt it was her duty to try to save the tree.
Before they could get there with a chainsaw and trucks to haul it away Clymenestra tied her self to the tree and held up a sign that said "Don't Kill Our Favorite Tree". Lonzo said that Clymenestra had probably never even noticed that there was a sweetgum tree in the park until the town council decided to cut it down. It was Clymenestra's ambition to become an activist and this was her first cause and she wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.
The town council really wasn't dead set on cutting down the tree so they decided they would have someone show up every day just to see how long Clymenestra would would keep herself roped to that tree. She hung in there real strong for a couple of days and nights. Her mama, Maybelle, brought her three meals a day and some insect repellent to keep the mosquitoes away at night and Clymenestra was holding up real well.
On the third day one of those thunderstorms that come up all of a sudden hit the park. Clymenestra was steadfast as long as it was just raining. She got soaked and her hair looked like it had been washed with a firehose and styled with a weedeater but she wasn't going to let a little soaking deter her. When the lightning started and the wind picked up and those limbs began to break and fall around her she began to untie those knots in the ropes quicker than an Eagle Scout.
Just as she ran from the tree and into a building for shelter an especially strong wind came up and blew that sweetgum tree up by the roots. The next day it was cut up and hauled away. Clymenestra wasn't too upset though. She made the front page of the Kudzu Kronicle which is about the most important thing to an activist. Ned Perkins, editor, reporter, photographer, typesetter and printer at the paper made a big deal of her heroics, complete with pictures of her tied to the tree and then of the tree after it blew down. His headline was, "YOU CAN'T FIGHT CITY HALL."
I'm Bo Lumpkin and I've been thinkin'.
Hey, Ya'll drop me an e-mail. I like to know someone is reading this stuff.
bo@bolumpkin.com bolumpkin@gmail.com

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