Dave was known as a bit of a tree-hugger. Nearly to the point of ridicule would he talk about his love of trees. But no one really made fun of Dave because he was too nice a guy. A teddy bear with his teenaged beard, he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. Some people would say he didn’t have a backbone either, because he so often gave in to others’ points of view. Not being particularly loud or assertive, he was plagued by the reality that many high school opinions are crafted by whomever is talking the loudest. Or the most derisively.
But ultimately that was merely on the surface, because deep down he was committed to one truth: We cannot let trees be cut down.
“See there we go again,” he pined in 1997, “another corporation trying to make money cutting down all those trees. The spotted owl is gonna be extinct!”
“Dave, it’s gonna always be that way. Money rules the world. Nothing’s gonna change until we find a way to make more money by not cutting down the trees.”
I still think about that conversation. I may have gotten some of the details wrong, but the gist is there. Our personalities really haven’t changed much since then either. Dave works in conservation biology and I have an MBA. If there’s prophecy in that conversation, Dave has realized his. And the more I think about it, it’s time for me to start finding money in the not cutting down of trees.
Peder with a D 