The Leveling of Eucalyptus Trees
On a bleak, overcast, dismal morning, Friday, June 23, to be exact, a small band of weary-eyed men with weather-beaten faces started mounting bulldozers with blades large enough to level City Hall. Engines roared as black diesel smoke belched from the stacks as the men with the weathered faces and steel-toed shoes made their machines jump ahead. Down the street they moved with no one in sight to witness the upcoming onslaught because of the early-morning hour.
Within minutes they were at war; the killing went on for hours! Limbs were torn and the slain lay scattered throughout the area. Man (the city administration) and machine had conquered a part of nature. Eucalyptus trees that took 50 to 100 years to mature were destroyed. All that beauty that was given us for so many years was destroyed by an order written with a 30-cent pen. You ask why? Why not? It’s to expand the parking area behind City Hall.
HOWARD D. SUBNICK
Huntington Beach
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