In the back yard of my house grew a giant oak tree. It was a majestic tower of strength adorned with marvelous green leaves reaching 60 feet high into the sky. Large branches arched wide providing an umbrella of cooling shade for hot summer days. My dad attached a giant tire swing to a thick lower branch and my friends and I would swing on it for hours. The oak tree was truly a wonder to behold when autumn came, the green leaves transformed into a hot flaming orange mixed with a cherry apple red pigment. The leaves looked like pieces of candy shining in a morning October sun. As they aged and fell we would pile them high and then run and jump in the mountain of brown.

One spring I noticed yellow dots appearing all over the soft new leaves. I told my dad and he came out to take a look. He said the poor tree was being attacked by an army of hungry yellow aphids. He never seen them so bad. Soon the new leaves began to curl and die. “Dad, what do we do? The bugs won’t stop attacking the poor tree.” He went to the local garden store and they gave him a spray, but it didn’t work. 

A worried neighbor said, “I have never seen anything like it. If you don’t do something quick they may start spreading to my trees, you must stop them. And if you don’t I will call the mayor.” A couple days later the aphid colonies grew and more leaves were dying. The neighbor came over and said, “Since you won’t do anything about it, I will.” 

That day a few people from the township came to inspect the bugs. One of the important looking men said, ”I wonder how those bugs spread?” Another answered, “I am not sure, but if the pesticide doesn’t work I have an idea. It seems the bugs may be jumping up from the ground, and if we cut off the bottom branches there is a good chance it could stop the spread.”

My dad quickly jumped in, “No way! That is our family’s tree. You can’t just come in here and destroy the beauty of our beloved oak tree, my kids have grown up with this tree. And plus, I have had many different types of bug problems over the years, and I guarantee these pesky aphids will eventually thin out and die. Some seasons are worse than others. They may seem way worse than normal this year, but I don’t think  this current situation is so bad a problem that we need to go so far and destroy the healthy branches of a tree. You know once you cut them they will never come back don’t you?”

The grim looking men looked at my dad and said with serious tones and crossed arms, “My dear sir, we need to do whatever we can so these bugs don’t get worse? We can’t risk it…cut the branches!”

Soon you could hear a chainsaw being pulled from the trunk of a city service vehicle. “Vroom, vroom, vroom.” A large man holding the sharp tool started walking in our back yard ready to cut the oak’s bottom branches.

“Stop!” Yelled my dad. But pushing him out of the way, the official said, “We know what we are doing. Please get out of the way.”

Sure enough, down went ten sturdy branches. When they cut the branch that held the tire swing a deep sorrow hit the pit of my stomach, I knew I would never be able to swing on that tree again. Soon the poor oak tree looked naked underneath with just a few remaining branches high at the top. My dad was furious, “That is my tree, and you destroyed it.”

“No I didn’t,” said the man with the saw. “Look, it is still alive, and plus, I’m hoping it will stop the infestation of aphids.”

As the men packed up and left, a large tear rolled down my dad’s cheek. He knew the tree would never be the same.

The next few weeks the aphids kept spreading, even moving over to the neighbor’s trees. Many leaves on all the trees in the neighborhood shriveled and were eaten by the nasty bugs. The township decided more branches on the neighborhood trees needed to be cut… but the bugs kept marching. By the early summer, the bugs finally started thinning out, and when October came the bugs all but died. Many of the leaves that were not eaten transformed again into the bright orangey-red of the regular autumn color. 

The next spring there were no longer any aphids, new green leaves grew again, but the branches that were cut were gone for good. The spreading majestic beauty was no more. I will never forget what my dad said as he looked at what became of the old oak tree, “When people think they can fix a problem by offering a quick solution they often do far more damage than simply letting nature take its course. Oh the problems human arrogance can cause.”

The old oak tree still lives but it will never be the same.