Daddy's Home by Tony Rubino and Gary Markstein for July 30, 2017

If we want to discuss tree-named streets, there’s a Beech Street in Cortez, Colorado. I know because I was a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints there and that was my living quarters’ street. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall there was on Ash.

My QotD is: Do you get it?

@Kyle You shouldn’t read “Pearls before swine” directly before – it tends to trigger your pun reflex.

Sometimes they name streets after the indigenous peoples from whom they’ve stolen the land. I used to live on Iroquois Avenue in what was quaintly known as “The Indian Village.”

The town I grew up on was one of those “instant” developments in the early 1960s. They removed every single tree and yes, names the streets after trees: Hemlock, Willow, Locust, Hickory, etc. And of course, the new residents had to plant every single tree in their new, naked yards. Little baby trees. No shade for about 20 years.

One thing I’ve noticed is that streets named after certain trees seem to be ubiquitous in the US…

whether or not those trees grow in that area.

Elm, Cherry, Pine, Maple, Oak, Spruce, Palm, Willow….

You’ll probably find at least three from that list in any small town, and I’d guess five in a big city.

In my medium size city we have five… maybe more, counting new housing developments…

and only three or four of the actual trees.

Yet we have no streets named after the fir, apple, lotus, eucalyptus, and other trees that abound.

So what I “get,” though it’s only a theory, is that those street names reflect a sort of idealised American past….

the leafy green streets George Washington walked on…

and Dick and Jane, and Superman as a boy.

A comfort zone.

Melki …it didn’t happen to be in Santa Rosa CA, did it?

Very few homes are built with wood today-trim is usually masonite or something similar. At least that’s the case in Texas where I’m a residential appraiser.

Crabgrass Road, Poison Ivy Lane, Sandspur Street…….The town I now live in named streets after some of the scenic locations…Landfill Rd, Slaughterhouse Rd, Madam Moores Lane……..

Sorry, folks, no second question today…nothing to work with. Maybe tomorrow.

Yes, it is a joke, an old, old joke.

The town I grew up in had streets named after trees, but also nearly every street had a canopy of branches. They were branches of stately elm trees. Then came Dutch Elm disease. End of trees.

Because I don’t want to live in the rain snow or heat with the other animals.

Because I don’t want to live in the rain snow or heat with the other animals.

You have to be working in an area with few trees in order to save them. Trees in groves only have green growth at the top exposed to the sun. Cut down the neighboring trees, and you wind up with a dead looking tree that nobody wants in there yard. Better in the long run to clear them and plant new with a purpose. Or go live in the forest.

I’ve never lived on a ‘tree’ street. I lived in housing tract called Sky Country and the streets were named after anything you might find in the sky. Then we lived in a tract called San Tropez and the streets had French sounding names. Now we live where all the streets are named after national parks. I’ve always kinda wanted a street named after me ……….you know, like Perkycat Lane.

“Hello, 911, what’s your emergency?”

“My wife just collapsed and we need an ambulance!!”

“Where are you?”

The 200 block of Eucalyptus .“

”How do you spell that?“

”………I’ll drag her over to Oak."

In all seriousness, their ubiquitous tackiness and blandness is only part of why I hate to see new subdivisions going up; a few blocks from where we lived about 25 years ago, they bulldozed 60 acres of old-growth oak and leveled all the rises in the ground just to turn our nice little town into a freakin’ suburb. We moved away…..

In 1994 I moved to a 10 year old rural home with nothing but weeds growing in the large front yard. One day the mail carrier stopped and asked me what I was doing. Planting a tree, says I. He answered, why bother? It will take 20 years to grow! And 20 years later, I have a yard full of trees.

They didn’t need to cut down the elms. Dutch elm disease got them all.

Depends on the variety of tree. Some grow like weeds. But generally I have found the faster the growth, the weaker the wood in a storm.