Toomer's Corner after the BCS National Championship GameToday I learned that someone put a lethal amount of herbicide in the soil surrounding the 130-year-old live oak trees at the heart of my university's campus and the heart of our celebratory traditions. Here's the link to the university's official news update on the status of the trees. http://ocm.auburn.edu/news/oaks.html Horticulture experts and other sources think they cannot be saved. In the words of my friend Emily, "I feel like poisoning someone." However, I will remain classy and refrain from extending blame as to who could have done this. However, the person responsible should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because not only is it an attack to the morale of our Auburn Family, it is a shameful and terrible attack on the ecosystem of the park containing the trees.
Two things that probably won't make you feel better, and they are definitely not meant to in any way take away from the magnitude of the situation:
ReplyDeleteFirst - when UF won the first basketball national championship in '06 there was a big celebration in the streets around the campus and the local bars and restaurants. There was a tree on the corner of one of the streets. Not a 130-year-old oak, but a pretty big tree nonetheless. The celebrating students were climbing in the tree until it toppled over. i don't think anyone was hurt, but the tree was dismantled piece by piece by the revelers and passed throughout the crowd. The tree didn't have the significance of the Tomer's Corner trees, but it was destroyed by celebrating fans and not evil haters.
Second - live oaks have a life span. They live for a long time and are very majestic, but they don't live forever. Storms and pests and just old age will kill them eventually. So while it might not take the pain of this event away, you replant. You get to watch the new trees grow as you come back to visit the campus. They'll grow so fast and in 20 years you'll be able to say "I was here during the tragedy of 2011 and I planted those trees."
I think it would be fitting to go ahead and cut them down and make little national championship footballs out of the wood. and give them out to all the students/alumni (and anyone else depending on how many could be made). So that people can have a little piece of the tradition. And of course plant new trees for the future, and call them the National Championship Oaks at Toomer's Corner.
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