When you compliment and criticize or clean and organize… do you Chop or Trim? When you cut your hair do you trim and maintain it or chop it all off for a drastic new look? What’s your approach?

Today's Pic of the Day: Chopped Tree Trimming

Yesterday morning I opened the door to take the dogs out and was greeted with the sawing and grinding sounds of the machinery used to trim back the trees from the power lines. I found this somewhat odd since the company had already been through our neighborhood in November and December. I walked around the front and sure enough, one guy was up in the bucket, another on the ground, vigorously attacking tree limbs. And I mean ATTACKING the tree limbs!

I’ve always questioned the way the city (or its sub-contractors) maintained the trees around the power lines. I completely understand the need for the them to coexist in a way that the lines are not disrupted, but the way the trees are trimmed has resulted in unhealthy, gnarled and disfigured specimens. Most of them are downright ugly. It appears the objective is to chop out the center, or the heart of the tree, leaving an unbalanced V-shaped wedge. Now keep in mind, over the years Elgin has proudly touted its historic tree-lined streets. They’ve even received national recognition for it. Today, there aren’t many left.

When we moved here 13 years ago, we had six trees growing on the parkway (the area between the sidewalk and street), five of which were around 60-80 feet tall. Of those five, none of them have looked especially healthy, and it took three years of phone calls to convince someone that one, with a decaying hole clear through the trunk, needed to come down. We now have three left. The youngest, shortest of these, was the one being attacked the other morning.

The workers didn’t prune or trim it… they chopped and hacked it. They removed nearly all the upper branches, there is no longer a heart or crown, but they left one curved branch that extends below the power lines over the street. When they were done, the one that had been removing all the branches, stood back and examined his work and said to the other, “That doesn’t look good”. To which the other man responded, “You did it. I told you it was too much”. The first guy then shrugged and said, “It’s just a tree.” and they went back to work.

It’s just a tree.

Though I don’t think they killed it, it is definitely disfigured for the rest of its years. I’m not sure what kind of tree it is but it is not not one of the common Maples that are in abundance. This tree had a nice healthy shape and for the most part, the main branches were no threat to the power lines in its reach.

Now, what if this tree were a person? What if instead of saws cutting branches, it was words cutting into someone’s personality, looks or work ethic? How much damage could those words do? Will they permanently disfigure their target? Will they promote healthy growth?

Do you Chop or Trim?