The Blackboard
(April 2003)

 “It's Green--It's Alive--KILL IT!”
By Ron Jones, MS

 The Tree Lives Despite "The Butchers"!!!  

Wellness is more than just fitness—it’s a mantra of healthy living that includes fitness, nutrition, environmental health, and more.  Limiting your exposure to toxic chemicals and living in an environmentally-friendly community is directly related to well-being.  One of the most positive things a community can do is to encourage and support the planting AND maintenance of trees!  You would think a town like Bakersfield would have adopted a very proactive ordinance in support of trees—wrong!  We only recently hired a city arborist (a tree specialist).  Why?!  We should have been going tree crazy decades ago!

 People are clueless in Bakersfield about healthy living in general but even more so about environmental health.  Numerous times I hear people talking about taking out trees because “they’ll grow.”  Ahh…I thought that was the whole idea!  Instead of using trees to shade our homes in the scorching desert heat, and clean our air that is nationally famous for being better than only LA, we butcher the few trees that escape total destruction.  I’ve talked to people from other parts of the country—they don’t understand why people butcher trees in Bakersfield.  I traveled a lot last year and noticed that other communities around the country properly trim their trees instead of butchering them.  It’s funny but sad…we attack trees like the evil empire terrorists of foliage.   Daily, unlicensed and unprofessional tree butchers attack what should be a community treasure.  Daily, ignorant community members hack down their trees so they don’t have to rake any leaves.  Yeah I know, I’ve heard it before in Bako a thousand times, “By God it’s my property, and I’ll do what I please!”  These same morons are burning their fireplaces until the cows come home (which is not a long journey in this town!).  We are killing ourselves and putting infants in the hospitals on respirators the first few months of life so we can slash our trees, burn what’s left of ‘em, and make a few short-term bucks. 

Bakersfield is justifiably called the armpit of California.  Don’t agree?  Take a deep breath, look for full tree canopies with abundant shade, watch our good ‘ol boy county and city planners approve nasty, dirty, low-paying businesses for interstate trucking while voting down tree ordinances and common sense environmental protections that might enable our kids to play without wheezing.  Fact: Bakersfield is a horrible place to live in terms of health.  Want to make things better?  Plant a tree or don’t butcher the one ya got!  Maybe there’s hope…the attached tree photo inspired me to write this article.  I thought the tree had been killed by “the butchers.”  When I went to take the photo, little green leaves were sprouting.  The tree has green and it lives!  Give it a chance—and our community.  Green is good—not communistic and threatening.  Smart communities elsewhere realized long ago that trees add property value, aesthetic value to neighborhoods, and increase quality of life…but this is Bakersfield.  At least we can buy discount underarm deodorant at Wal-Mart.

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