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I’ll admit it. I’m a tree hugger. I love trees! I know it’s foolish to have trees too close to a house, because of the danger of heavy branches falling on the roof and damaging the home. Nevertheless. I still hate to see them cut down, especially tall, mature trees. I took the photo for this poem when my neighbor was having one of two trees removed from the property surrounding her house. A few months later, the other one was taken down also. Sigh.

One of my earliest memories is of the day my parents hired a tree service to come to the new house, into which our family had recently moved. I was not quite six years old. Our house was the very first one built in a new housing subdivision, in a thickly wooded area. There was a very large, mature tree growing in what would become the front lawn. I remember begging my dad to save the tree. He said it might fall on the house in a storm and had to be cut down. I was crushed! To see that home, look at the photo on my poem, “Number on the Telephone Line” and imagine how it would have looked with an enormous, mature tree next to the driveway, right across from the front door! I have to admit, Dad was right.