Couple New Year's ago, or maybe three, we finished off what ended up being a twenty-four hour party by walking out after dinner to look at the house that a tree had fallen onto. Big three story Victorian, even bigger elm tree. Crunched right through the roof, made the whole house list. Several of us spent an hour in the windy night watching the crane pull the tree off the house. A white owl lost his home that night too. He spent the whole time flying between the elm and two palm trees over on our side of the street.
While we were watching, we chatted up the crane operator. He got a call to another treefall, so six or seven of us piled into someone's car to go see the devastation there. That's right. We celebrated the New Year by driving to another squashed house. This one was little and in a kinda bad neighborhood. The branches were much wider than the house, and looked to be growing sideways from the living room. The owner was an older black man who was remarkably sanguine. "My insurance is paid up and God just gave me a new house." He'd been sitting in the living room, heard the creak and walked out his side door as the tree came down. Calm fellow.
