arboreal anti-desecration league reunited, part I

the tree branch thing was TK's idea.

the park across the street from her house is the site of the city's biggest fourth of july party. 200,000 people show up. bands play all day, and there are booths of things to buy, and families with picnic baskets.

TK told us about the party a couple of weeks ago, while we were drinking beers in her backyard.

"i have an idea," she said. "let's gather branches over the next few weeks, and then, the night before the party, we can sneak into the park and make giant peace signs out of them, and lay them all over the park."

of course, we immediately agreed.

the party is one week from yesterday. six days from today. last night, j and i were having dinner with TK, and we each humbly admitted that none of us had gathered any branches.

"hmm," she said.

then i recalled the time back in alabama, when the city had marked dozens of old-growth trees in our neighborhood with big, red "X"es, marked for destruction because the electric company wanted easier access to the power lines. TK and j and i and several of our friends spent hours painting protest signs, then nailed (yes, nailed -- but only after asking the trees' forgiveness) the signs to every tree we could find marked with the red X. we called ourselves the arboreal anti-desecration league. we sent anonymous press releases to the newspaper.

as a result, the city held a meeting. officials exclaimed surprise and alarm over the neighborhood's arboreal loyalty. and the trees stayed.

"hey," i said now, "remember the tree protest!"

so instead of making giant peace signs out of tree branches, it was unanimously decided that we should paint peace signs onto giant cardboard signs and affix them to the hundreds of trees lining the park (with rope this time, not nails).

we'll see how this small-time activism goes over in this big-time activist town.

i'll let you know in a week.