My first (and latest) Earth Day

It all started in 1970, and I was there..

Earth Day began in 1970 and takes place every April 22, and I was there for the first one as a skinny high school sophomore. As I remember, our class cleaned out a drainage ditch behind the school and planted a few trees. Sadly, the school is now gone, being reduced to rubble and trucked away. But I hope that a few of the trees we planted 55 years ago are still there.

Show me the pictures!

I’ve contacted my classmates to see if there’s any pictures of the first Earth Day event, but in 1970 cameras and film were expensive, unlike today when every phone is a camera. But I was able to get an alumni to send me a picture of the small Earth Day flag sewed by one of my other alumni. Apparently, this flag has been sitting in a drawer for the last 55 years and is still in perfect shape.

What about today?

Well, late Saturday night we had what must have been a mini-tornado touch down close to our house, and the high winds toppled the 125 ft tall poplar tree in my backyard. It sounded like a freight train passing over the house, but it didn’t do any damage except for toppling our giant poplar tree.

The root ball is 14 ft across, and the tree is 5 ft in diameter near the base, so at 125 feet tall this was a HUGE tree. Fortunately it fell exactly the right way to miss anything important since it could have smashed my two trucks and a garage had it fallen in the other direction.

So this Earth Day I’m planning how to get it removed, and what to plant in its place. And I’m really interested to count the rings to see exactly how old this beautiful giant was. I’ll take pictures!

Let’s play safe out there… Mike