Satan Laughing Spreads His Wings

Evil forces are hard at work in North Miami. After about thirty-five years of having a policy of planting trees throughout the city suddenly something changed. Now mature shade trees, entire rows of them spanning several blocks, suddenly sprouted bands of flourescent orange tape marking them for the executioner.

A few days later the executioners arrived. They had no idea why they were cutting these trees but assured me that they had the relevant permits for cutting down each and every one of them. It might have made a bit of sense on the other side of the street where existing poles and wires run the length of N.E. 14th Avenue, and where still taller poles carrying high tension wires connecting two electric substations are in the plans. But this side? It makes no sense at all.

The branches were cut off, cut up, and hauled away. A few days later the trunks were cut down to the ground, then they too were cut into sections light enough to be tossed into a truck and hauled away. Within a few days there was little left but piles of sawdust and the occasional remnant of orange tape littering the ground.

A small fortune in tax dollars spent nursing the seedlings in the city nursery, paying crews to plant the saplings, watering and fertilizing them as they grew and matured over the decades, the periodic trimming of the mature trees. All wasted. Suddenly our shade is gone. There's no place for the birds to roost and nest and serenade us, no green leaves returning oxygen to the air. Gone, all gone. The trees are gone. The birds are gone. The squirrels are gone. Traded for higher taxes and higher air conditioning expense.

The remains of the trees are rotting in a landfill somewhere. Satan must be smiling.