It’s Too Old, Just Cut It Down

As I drive up to our property in NW Tulsa, there was this huge old American Elm tree on the 2.5 acres to our north. This property also had 14 old abandoned dumpy houses on it, that have been abandoned for many years and were falling apart. Being such an eyesore, we wanted them gone, as they’re on the adjoining property to what is going to be 63 nice, new tiny homes for our formerly homeless.

I’ve been trying to buy that land for over a year, as I saw this as an opportunity to demolish those old homes and replace them with nice new larger homes that could serve our homeless with families, which we’re unable to do in our 400’ tiny homes. Our new 3D-printed concrete technology could then build a 900’ 3-bedroom, 1-bath home on those 14 empty lots, already zoned for homes. And…….I really wanted that huge tree, with over 100’ of canopy circumference, and well over 125 years old by our estimation.

This grand tree, one of the largest and oldest living American Elms in Tulsa, was taken down to the ground by the new owners of this property, whom I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting yet. This old tree survived the years of Dutch Elm Disease, which destroyed the vast majority of American Elms in our city years ago. They lined my old street in Tulsa back in the early 60’s, and they all died, as most others did. This legacy tree was not ready to be cut down, as it was beautiful.

The guy hired by the new owners said the tree had some rot in it, and some dead limbs, so they just took it down. Really? This tree has survived since before Oklahoma was a state, and even with some years of drought, wind (the wind storm earlier this year didn’t touch it), insects, and stress, it looked great. But it was rough around the edges, too old, so they just chopped it down to the ground.

This type of selfish and backward thinking is similar to what some folks think about people who are showing the stress from their lives, be it old age, or homelessness. They’re old, they’re not useful anymore, they’re broken, so just ignore them, or cut them off from society. And, this is just not right, just as it was not right to take that magnificent old tree down.