I had done the paperwork and arrangements for Dr. Freakout to go to Seattle for a conference a couple months ago. In late June he left for said conference. Yesterday he was back to work.
Given that I had done the paperwork for his trip, I knew that he'd be taking a couple days of leave after the conference to go to Olypic National Park. So when I saw him, forget the RNA Society, forget his plane ride, I called down the hall "How was Olypic?"
He invited me into his office and told me about his trip. One of the things he mentioned was a trail he'd hiked that led to the largest Yellow Cedar tree in the country.
"I find though," he said, gesticulating to the cedar's location on the PDF map on his monitor, "that these old cedar trees are not that interesting."
"But they've got to be huge," I said.
"Huge yes," he said, matter of factly, "But they look like they're dying. If you contrast them with the giant Redwoods in northern california, they look decrepit. The Redwoods actually look like their having a happy life."
I chuckled at his personification of the trees as we pursued the topic further. "This cedar," he said, flicking toward the monitor again, "will live, but it looks miserable. The Redwoods look jovial and the only thing that I've heard will kill them is if they fall over."
My brain did a quick scan of the possible inducements that could knock down one of those trees. Wind? Too-soft earth? A very committed and tenacious beaver? None seemed very likely in California. "What would knock those mammoth's down?" I asked.
"Well, they don't put their roots down very low."
I couldn't resist. "Pretty dumb trees," I said.
He looked at me like it was the weirdest thing in the world to personify a tree. "What?" he said.
"Well they grow to be so top heavy and yet they don't put down deep roots."
"But they're magnificent," he countered.
"Magnificent maybe," I offered, "but daft."
He shrugged his shoulders in his classic way and we went on to talk about the Grand Canyon.
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