(This month Bill Moore is off on a well deserved vacation. He
has asked that we repeat the column B.C. Lumberman originally pub-lished
in our January, 1973 edition).
....The man and the boy stood back from
the lake’s edge a few hundred yards and watched the sunrise. The
air was cool and the glint of the rays made them both squint as they
looked across the water at the Plastic Forest.
....“Was there really a time when
forests were made of trees that were little and grew bigger—were
the forests green like that one over there —what were real forests
like—do you remember them?”
....“Wait now boy—one question
at a time. No I have never seen a real forest of what they called wood
trees. It was long ago and no one alive today in the world would remember.
But I have seen pictures of the great forests; someday I will take you
to the central library and you can see them for yourself. I have read
the history of the trees and when you get older I will make sure you
read of them too.”
....“The histories tell of great
forests of beautiful tall trees. Most of the forests were green, like
the one you know across the lake but then in some parts of the world
at certain seasons there were forests of red and yellow trees. Some
wooden trees were called hard-wood and some were called soft-wood. On
this western land that we live in most of the trees were green and they
covered the mountains like a thick carpet when seen from the sky.”
....“The great library, that I will
take you to, has many pictures of the wooden forests. They tell of the
beau-tiful smells of the forest, of the mists and fog of the forest,
of the stillness of the forest, and of the abundance of animals in this
part of the west. There were animals called deer, and bear and squirrels
and beaver, and count-less more. These animals used the forest for their
home, for they could find food there and they could find safety from
the hunter—man. I read
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once that the smell of freshly cut trees on a damp morning was a perfume
that could never be duplicated by man and his sciences.
....“And the stories of the great
winds that rushed through the trees of the forest and sounded like singing
or whistling. The winds would sometimes get so strong, the trees would
bend and break or be blown over and crash to the ground And you see
boy, the trees that fell and rolled away were the food for the ground
that allowed other young trees to grow. Nature looked after her own
in the great forests, but unfor-tunately man in his haste to live, and
his neglect of nature, forgot that there is a balance of nature that
must not be forgotten.”
....“As the countries of the world
became overpopulated the forests were overused and abused. The machine
age, the great cities’ age, the great factory age—all created
great prob-lems with the air around the world. Some men warned of the
dangers of the worsening air in the world, but not enough countries,
as groups of people were known by, heeded their warning. The pressures
mounted through the years and finally the disaster of the Great Global
War befell the world and the resulting terrible gasses and con-taminated
air were simply too much for the forests. The balance of nature was
broken and all the forests of the world died. It is a miracle that some
men lived on in caves and shelters and were able to keep records of
the times.”
....“When the few remaining people
of the world emerged from their caves and shelters the world was still
and hot in the day and cold at night. The winds had ceased and instead
of the great green carpets of trees, there stood the white skeletons
of trees, their green coats gone and lost to man forever. It was then
that mankind learned he would have to find a new way of life to survive.”
....The sun was now above the tops of
the Plastic Forest across the lake. The
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air was warming up quite fast about the rocky area that the man and
the boy were standing in. Soon they would have to go indoors for the
heat would be overpowering in its reflection off the great rocky slopes.
....“But why do they call those
trees the Plastic Forest—and why are they there?”
....“Son, without that plastic forest
and hundreds of others like it we could not live in this world. You
see the great forests of the world acted as a sort of giant filter system
that purified our air and gave off oxygen for us to breathe. When the
Great Global War was over the surviving people soon found out that they
must have a substitute for the forests so that there would be good air
to breathe. So all of what was left of man’s resources around
this burned out globe were put to the test of creating a new filtering
system to give us oxygen that we might survive. Systems were built to
look like green trees—as a reminder to man of the wrong he had
done. We really do little else now except tend the machines that keep
the filtering systems working. There is little time now for the jobs
of life that were known in other ages when the great forests did our
work for us.”
....“It is getting very warm, we
should return to the house.” They turned and began to walk up
a well worn path to their home. “What is that father—do
you see it over there among those rocks?”
....The man stepped off the path and walked
carefully over to where the boy was pointing. He knelt down and a look
of disbelief came over his face. He had seen pictures—it was green
and it was several inches high—and he could touch it—it
was no picture!
.... It was a tree?—a tree—a
small tree —what were they called in the great library?—a
seed or seedling —that was it, a tree seedling—and it was
growing—here by the lake—near his home. But would it survive?
Were there more like it? He would find out,
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