My ex-town used to be
beautifully
green. There were
trees everywhere. So many
wonderful trees to provide
shade and reduce the amount of
eyesore that is the
town. It was an
official Illinois Tree City, whatever the
hell that means, and the
citizens were
proud to live in the
nice town. There was a huge
movement towards the "
Keep Taylorville Beautiful"
campaign, and
people planted trees and
picked up
trash and other
such things.
It all started with the
high school. The
east side of the
school was to be
added on to. So, in order to add the new
science wing, they had to
scrap a couple trees. This led to the
chopping down of many other trees in the surrounding school
property. When I
graduated from high school, it had gone from nice
green place to a
Lorax-like
barren wasteland. There were
no trees. Now, they're trying to
make up for it with
saplings that aren't
living.
Then the
general attitude towards trees in the town
veered, and then dropped
sharply. No one cared anymore about how the town looked.
Hell, they were even
cutting trees down in the
park. I could feel the
temperature rising year by year because of the
lack of
shade to
prevent it from
popping a
greenhouse effect on the
concrete of the
roads.
Just a little exaggeration now to get my point across...
Then came the
napalm. They
wiped out the
east side of town in less than
two weeks. The
heat in the
summer swelled and there was
nowhere to run. I
left. I went to the
city. Ironically, there are
fewer trees here...