Today is April Fool’s Day. I am not one to play pranks or enjoy pranks played on me. But today, I wished so hard that I was the victim of a cruel joke. I pulled into the parking lot where I teach Nia three days out of the week and I was so sad to see that ALL the trees are marked for removal. So the tree-lined parking lot that one must drive down to enter the main parking lot will no longer be tree-lined. There will no longer be trees and sky to look up at. I was running late today, but the supervisor of the center was walking by as I was getting ready for class and I asked him about the trees. I believe he said that they will be removed and relocated. I really was in a hurry so I was unable to get more details, but I think he said if they can’t fit in the parking lot most of them will go to parks. But that doesn’t change the fact that the trees will no longer be at the center. They are putting up those solar parking canopies.
So, I saw the solar parking canopies go up in school parking lots and I thought it was ridiculous that they need to add shade for cars. But then I was informed that they are solar. So I thought that was cool. The few school parking lots that I have seen them go up in were just barren plots of asphalt. That makes sense to me. But at this center they are taking down trees. This makes me sad.
There just seems to be so much metal and concrete around, I think it is so sad when a tree gets taken down/moved/removed to put up more metal and concrete. A comment made was “it is being done to be green”. I am just not convinced that removing green trees is the way to be green. It just seems so wrong. Also, I was told that now there will be shade for cars, more than there is already provided by the trees that they are taking down. Again . . . not convinced that cars having shade is more important than birds having homes and places to eat.
As I was standing in the parking lot talking to one of my students who was equally sad that the trees were going away we were listening to the birds and watching them flit around in the trees. While we enjoyed it, it was somewhat bittersweet because at one point, there will be parking canopies going up in place of the trees.
No April Fool’s joke here. Actual live trees, green trees are being removed so we can be green. Places that birds and bugs live and feed will be removed so we can have shade for our cars. Makes me sad.
The center is quite large and so I am bummed that trees have to be removed instead of some type of roof top installation of solar panels. I mean, solar panels are great to help with energy. It makes sense: sun, power — good. But it is so sad that the trees have to go. It is so sad that they will be replaced by metal and concrete.
It was even more prophetic that when I got in my car the radio was playing, “It’s The End Of the World as we know it.” I am not even certain that a more appropriate song would have been Big Yellow Taxi, ya know the one that says “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Sigh. Good-bye pretty tree-lined parking lot. I’ll miss you.
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