Hug an Oak Today

You don’t have to be one of those environmentalist tree huggers to want to hug an oak tree. Just as you would hug a soldier before they go off to war, you should also hug that oak for it might wage its own type of war.

It’s dangerous out there for North American trees. In my youth there would be dead trees all about in various places. They were stripped bare of bark and just had a light wood look to them. I was assured that all these trees were former elm trees. They had lost their lives to dutch elm disease. All across North America, these once mighty elms had died.

Then a few years ago in my city, the local government had to lay out a lot of cash to cut down all the ash trees. The emerald ash borer was killing all the ash trees and there was no hope for any of them. As a retardant we were cutting down ash trees ahead of the advance. Now I forget if the spread was coming from the east or going toward the east but North American ash trees are disappearing as the emerald ash borer spreads to the seas.

The next tree apocalypse species could be any of a number of species that makes its home in North America. Next could be the ironwood tree, the aspen tree or the oak. It could be the yew tree, the fir tree or the oak tree.

Only the oak tree fits in both sets. It’s name both starts with a vowel and it is three letters long. So, by using pattern recognition skills alone, I have managed to predict the future. I am going to go out on a limb here (see what I did there) and say oak trees are in dire circumstances. So hug that oak tree you have largely been ignoring and thinking will always be around.

Pattern recognition skills: is there anything that they can’t predict? Just please don’t look at all the failed science fiction predictions.