Letter to the Editor: Let Trees Live

To the Editor: 

A very tall, 85-foot Norwegian Spruce was recently cut down and will be  decorated at the ice skating rink in Radio City. As always, these trees look so very beautiful with all the ornaments and lights on them. Children and grownups alike admire them. They make for a very festive occasion as I’m sure everyone will agree.

However, television viewers and others will be told that this wonderful tree, so tall and full, was planted over 50 years ago. In it’s lifetime it gave pleasure to countless persons who gazed upon it. In the summertime it gave us shade on a hot day and nature has provided that it produce oxygen so that living things may breathe and live, as it too has lived. Its roots kept the soil from washing away during a rain storm. It’s branches provided comfort and protection to the many animals who lived in or by it and it whistled as the winds blew currents through it. Also it’s pine needles made wonderfully scented pillows for our pleasure.

Soon it will stand at the end of an ice skating rink in New York City, dead and never to grow again. Did this magnificent tree deserve this kind of an ending? It could still be living and doing all the good things that God meant it to do. Even murderers get stays of execution. Why did it have to be sacrificed when another solution could have been accomplished? A solution that seems so fair and much more humane, considering that 50 years is only a short time in the life of a tree, like this one... a tree that gave so much pleasure to so many of us. I once saw a tree in California that was 800 years old before Columbus discovered America, and that was because it was protected.

As I ride on the Garden State Parkway I observe so many ugly “microwave towers,” with little antennas protruding from their cross arms. Then when I’m in the Cranford area, a much more pleasant sight meets my eyes: It is a tower that looks just like a tree, a pine tree. The microwave antennas were made to look like branches and needles, resembling a pine tree, and not just an ugly tower used for commercial purposes. I admire this every time I pass it.  My point is this — Why can’t we save these trees that are cut down just for the season and substitute them with artificial ones that can be made to look just like the real tree? In this way we do not disturb nature's way of caring for us and have a good looking tree made of synthetic material which can be used over again.

This tree that I write about has not served its purpose by being put on display in NYC to promote business, and that’s exactly why it’s there. The purpose God had for it was to provide shelter and warmth for our own safety and comfort. If it were cut down and used in building a dwelling one would not be reading this article that I write. This tree would have been serving its rightful purpose and not that of a seasonal symbol to promote business.

Let the tree live. If anyone agrees with me, and I hope many do, go out and post signs on these huge “trophy’s” (just like in hunting season) stating that there is another solution, a better one indeed. 

Thank you and let us all keep “Christ in Christmas.” Send a Christmas card to those God haters of the ACLU and tell them that God still loves them even though they caused Kmart, Sears and others to refrain from saying Merry Christmas to their customers.     

Arthur A. Sholty

Brick