Every year the trees bud, and your heart swells. Every year you think this might be the year the Old Beloved Tree comes down, and your heart sinks. Or stops entirely when you consider the cost. Last year a neighbor's tree started dropping branches the size of circus-tent poles in our back yard, and the tree doctor said it was probably due for removal. See how all the telephone wires are up there? It would take them out, and you'd be without service.
I shrugged. Eh. That's what cellphones are for. I turned to the neighbor and said, "Your call. I know it's expensive."
"It'd take out your Internet, too," said the tree inspector.
"If it's not gone in two days I will sue for everything you own," I told the neighbor.
The tree was removed by a crane usually employed to assemble moon rockets. It lifted the tree over the house, where it floated like enormous mutant broccoli. It reminded me of the last tree we lost: one day, the fatal orange X. Dutch elm (which some legislators want to rename to avoid insulting the Dutch, but that's another story.) Most of the street's magnificent elms were lost to that stupid beetle, which is probably sitting in a bar right now offering to buy the emerald ash borer a drink. Kid, you got potential.
Anyway. A door-hanger gave me a number to call to request a replacement, and I don't remember the options, since I'm bad with trees. You got your birch, your evergreens, then, uh, the ones that are pretty in fall, then the deciduous, the bituminous. Palms. Whatever I asked, I realized the other day that it never arrived.
So how does one get a tree from the city?
First of all, I wish I could have done it myself, because there would have been a tree within two months of the old one's removal. Fifty-nine days for my wife to remind me and one day to put it in. But the boulevard belongs to the city, which is why they seed it and mow it and pick up the trash and water it.
