This past Thursday I had a tree cut down in the front yard of my someday-house in Provincetown.
The tree had originally been given to Mrs as a gift from Mr Original Owner some fifty-or-more years ago, though according to the neighbors they’d both hated the thing ever since. It grew out of control for the space, pulling up the sidewalk and curb around it in the postage-stamp front yard, loomed larger and higher than the small house itself, and prevented most light from entering from the south.
They were sentimental, though, and couldn't bring themselves to cut it down. Plus they were probably afraid of what the neighbors would do.
And that was before Facebook.
After I bought the house I knew it needed to be pruned, so I called a tree guy who said, “You need to take this thing down, or you need really good insurance.”
Then I called the tree warden, who said, “It’s old and if it hurts someone it’s your liability.”
Then I called a few tree companies who said, “About $7,000 to take it down.”
Then I called Instacart to have some bourbon delivered.
Seven thousand dollars just to remove it? That’s, like, before I’ve started renovating the house. Does cutting down the tree by any chance create heat and insulation within the house? And maybe plumbing?
I didn’t think so.
Provincetown is a town of painters and poets, artists and artistic temperaments, and lots and lots of barely-working year-rounders with lots and lots of time on their hands to notice when anything changes. A fence color. A flag. A parking space. Sure as shooting a tree coming down.
The Removal Of Another Tree On Commercial Street read the Facebook post on the community page, posted by someone walking past while the guy was still on the rope in the tree with the chainsaw. The comments started to flow.
Oh, wow. Just because it’s old and diseased doesn’t mean you cut it down!1
Let me guess - you “needed” to cut the tree down to improve your view.2
Maybe they’re going to plant some astroturf there instead.3
Barbara Rushmore would be rolling over in her grave!4
Barbara Rushmore, who invented her new last name after her divorce so that, “...if I did anything wonderful it wouldn’t reflect well on my ex-husband,” was, until her death at 98 last year, the tree maven of Provincetown. She named trees after dead people, and tied herself to at least one that was slated to be cut down. She was the kind of bat we all want to be when we grow up and a warrior on many fronts, but trees were her vanguard.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s a really good thing she died before I had to do this.
The tree in my front yard was patiently waiting until it could kill someone. There it stood, crooked, angled, and splayed out over the sidewalk, main street of the town, and my little house. Ivy climbed its massive trunk and lower, thick branches, which made it harder to see how dead they were.
Or, as Miracle Max says in The Princess Bride, “Not dead. Only mostly dead.”
As people gathered under its shade on hot summer days, baby strollers gently rocking back and forth while tired parents ate ice cream; as painters sat across the street capturing its essence, or at least what they assumed was its essence, the tree was biding its time.
It didn’t fool me for a minute.
There would come a day when the staff at the restaurant next door was hurriedly unloading a truck, when the line for the taco place across the street extended to my walkway, when three pugs lined up with their pup cups on my front yard, and someone working in water colors had just dipped a brush. Then it would let loose with its biggest limb, just for sport.
The news story would be huge, but not as huge as the insurance payout.
It still has leaves on it - it looks perfectly healthy to me!
I used to lean on that tree all the time and it seemed perfectly healthy.
Do not agree with this
Rob, my property manager who was at the scene of the crime called me alarmed when some woman challenged the fact that the tree was rotten, jumped onto the truck where the cut logs were being loaded, and started going through them.
The duty cop I had to pay shook his head and muttered about people being crazy in this town. It was time to respond.
I posted on the thread in a friendly way explaining what was going on, why I was taking down the tree, and that I had plans for more trees and greenery to be planted once renovations were done. I also posted a video of water pouring out of the trunk as it was cut, a sure sign of the tree’s malevolent intentions. Like the girl spewing pea soup in The Exorcist.
This was of course not good enough for some. I expected nothing less.
In the 80s I cut down a tree that was preventing all light from reaching my backyard. The house had been on an old apple orchard, so trees were everywhere, but this Norway Maple was huge, unhealthy, and had reduced my good-sized yard to mud year-round.
The neighbor in the house behind me took me to court. I had to go before a judge, where my neighbor testified that since I’d cut down the tree, the moon shone into her window at night and kept her awake. Because of me she was now sleep-deprived and I was negatively impacting her health. She demanded remuneration and that I replace the tree with another tree of the same size, which would cost about $10,000.
The judge asked me what I had to say.
“Well, Your Honor, I usually close my eyes when I sleep. I also have shades. So I’m not really sure what to say.”
He looked at me over his glasses and said, “I close my eyes when I sleep, too. Case dismissed.”
Some twenty years later a massive mulberry tree was pulling down the cable and power lines, and making a mess in the sun-starved tiny yard in a different house. The neighbors behind me had been cutting the branches that extended over their yard, so the tree was lopsided and leaning dangerously, sure to fall onto my house in a storm. The care and maintenance was more than a thousand dollars a year.
I told the neighbors I was thinking of taking it down, and they all got together and wrote a letter demanding that I leave it standing. So I went to all of them and asked how much they’d be willing to chip in for the yearly maintenance.
The answer was $0.
The day it came down they all gathered around and let me know what a tree murderess I was. I offered to help them plant trees in their yards, but for some reason they never took me up on it.
The Provincetown Facebook post now has 192 comments.
When William Goldman wrote The Princess Bride’s deathmatch scene between the Dread Pirate Roberts and Vizzini, he cemented two great truths: Never get involved in a land war in Asia, and never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
He forgot just one:
Never cut down a tree.
Morning Teaistisms
I wonder why we don’t Linden more? Or do we, and I just don’t know about it?
I used to drink linden tea all the time and then forgot about it. It’s a delicious, gentle, year-round-worthy flavor good hot or cold, with supposed medicinal benefits, but I don’t hold that against it.
I enjoy a linden sparkling water from Switzerland, but I can’t find it often around these parts.
The Spanish tenant I have now asked me to find some for her, and Amazon didn’t fail.
Yes, it literally does
The house has no view other than the house across the street
I was unaware that one planted astroturf
This is probably true
Oh, boy, Marjie, you've already become famous in P-Town and you haven't even moved in yet! People can be such assholes so I say ignore the 192 posts (and probably more coming!). Never get in a pissing contest with skunks!!! You did the right thing.....that barely hanging to life huge tree was just waiting to plop a huge dead limb on an unsuspecting passerby which, of course, would have started an entire new post about the murderess of Commercial Street :) You go girl!!!!!
oh there is way too much to respond to in this treatise: one juicy item after another! All I can say is that it is delightful; it inspires rage; it is inimitable. But: a "tree warden"? Is it just that I've never had to call one?? Does that excuse that I never knew they existed?? I could easily start swearing just thinking about them pursuing you this way, but not in your forum here.....(maintaining decorum you know). Well done.