I have been criticized before for neglecting the local events in Van Nuys, so I want to point out the very important work that has been done to our trees along Hamlin Street.

For the past week, great orange cones and enormous orange trucks and small mustached men in orange suits have taken out their chain saws and given our oaks a trim. They have done an artful job, thinning the trees out, without decapitating them. Only Jim, around the corner, complained that “they hacked my Pepper Tree”. (Note to Jim: those were the lesser paid axers).

The grandeur of these massive trees stands in vast contrast to the banal homes which they shade. Nature provides a nobility and beauty to this neighborhood that would otherwise be another smoggy moonscape, of whores, shaved sepia-skinned heads, and litter, in the central SF Valley.

Neighbors and the city seem to respect the Oaks, as reverently as Californians once heaped respect upon education and the Orange Tree. For the moment, the Oak is protected, though one hopes that Al-Kayder doesn’t utilize oak sap in his secret weapons or our entire population of trees will end up in the landfill.