He Should Have Just Let The Sap Drip On His Tree

Raymond Mazzarella and the tree
he cut down, causing so much trouble. 

Raymond Mazzarella of Pittston Township, Pennsylvania hated the pine tree next door to the apartment building he lived in.

The tree's branches hung over his parking spot, and always seemed to drip sap onto his car. Really annoying.

Some people would have gone next door and complained about the tree, hoping something could get done.

Others might have asked the landlord to help in that effort. Or ask the landlord to trim the branches that were hanging over the apartment building property. Or Mazzarella could have parked his car away from the tree.

But those ideas make sense! We can't have that!

So, according to television station WNEP in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Mazzarella took matters into his own hands.

He went next door with a chainsaw and cut down the offending pine tree.

As is often the case with ideas like this, things went a bit awry. The pine fell onto the apartment house Mazzarella and five other people lived in, and pretty much destroyed it.

The city condemned the apartment house because it's damaged so badly. (Even its foundation shifted)

Mozzarella, as you can imagine, is not taking thiswell. Actually, he's taking it out on other people.

WNEP says Mozzarella came back to the apartment building later, where he encountered another resident, Tony Latwiss, moving his belongings out of the wrecked apartment building.

Mozzarella inexplicably attacked Latwiss with a baseball bat, leaving him bruised and sore.

Police are not amused, as you might imagine. At last check, Mazzarella was in jail, charged with simple assault, reckless endangerment and harassment.

By the way, it seems Mazzarella has a bit of a temper to begin with. In 2011, he was arrested for making threats against a local police chief.

Woman Thinks That Driving With 15-Foot Tall Tree Embedded In Front Bumper No Big Deal

The Roselle, Illinois police department took these
evidence photos of a car they stopped because
it was driving down the road with a tree embedded
in the vehicle's grille. 

I admit I'm not always the most attentive driver.

I'm good most of the time out on the road, but every once in awhile, I notice a little late that the light has turned red, or the car in front of me has stopped. I always notice in time, so there's been no mishaps.

However, I am an attentive enough driver, I'm sure, that I would notice if there were a 15 foot tall tree embedded in the front of my truck as I cruise down the road.

I mention this because apparently, a woman in Illinois this winter did NOT notice the 15 foot tall tree embedded in the front grill of her 2004 Lincoln as she cruised down the fine roadways of Roselle, Illinois back in January, says the Chicago Tribune. 

We all found out about this because the Roselle Police Department, in a pleasant, welcome fit of public outreach, decided to post the incident on their Facebook page recently.

I don't know if Roselle Police caught the emotion of the moment in their Facebook post, but you get the idea: "Stopped for driving with a large tree embedded in the front grille," the report said.

To be fair to Maryann Christy, of Schaumburg, Illlinois, who was driving the treed Lincoln, we don't know if the tree was actually 15 feet tall. "We didn't stand there and measure it, but it was a big tree," Roselle Deputy Chief Roman Tarchala told the Chicago Tribune.

OK, it might have only been 14 feet tall, for all we know. My bad.

A motorist who saw the car being driven with the tree attached called police. It's widely reported that Roselle Police did not have much trouble finding the car and the tree driving throught Roselle and quickly made the traffic stop.

You can see in the helpful Roselle Police dash cam video at the bottom of this post that the officer who stopped Christy and her tree looked rather nonplussed. You can almost see the thought bubble over his head: "I don't make enough money to deal with stuff like this."

I also noticed just before the police car came to a stop that the officer was playing Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" on the radio. Was that a tribute to the tree on the Lincoln?

Christy told police that she struck the tree somewhere in her hometown of Schaumburg, which is right next to Roselle, but didn't know exactly where, the Tribune reports.

I'll let the Tribune pick up the rest of the story. Boy, will you be surprised, or not:

"Officers said the woman smelled of alcohol and failed field sobriety tests. She was cited for driving under the influence, police said."

Really?!?

She's due in court April 15.

That would be the perfect time to go out to Illinois to enjoy Christy's court arraignment, and take advantage of the springtime warmth to plant a needed new tree in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Here's the dash cam video from Roselle Police:

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Has No Place In Reading, Pa.

This "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree in Reading, PA.
is going to be removed in favor of a better one,
says the city. Photo from WFMZ-TV.  

If you have a soft spot for Charlie Brown Christmas trees, you know, the rather sad, pathetic one Charlie Brown befriends in the holiday special, don't go to Reading, Pennsylvania.

The city put up a Christmas tree, as many municipalities do, but it got complaints immediately.

It was not big and bushy like a traditional tree, but kind of lacking in branches and greenery and vigor.

It's going to go, Reading officials said, according to television station WFMZ in Allentown.

There's been a big fundraiser going on to raise $5,000 for a new tree to be put up for another tree lighting ceremony next weekend.

The tree was the target of LOTS of insults, says WFMZ:

"'I know Reading is not doing too great,' one man who works near the tree told the news station. 'But facing this tree up here is making it even worse.'

'If I were a squirrel looking for a home for the winter, I wouldn't even go in that tree,' said another."

Consumerist says the city was to have gotten a nice tree from a farmer, but then there was a bunch of rain and the farmer wouldn't let any heavy equipment through to get the tree. So the city basically cut down the first tree they saw in a city park and went with it.

But, as I said, a nicer tree is on the way. I kind of hope some kind soul adopts the city's 50-foot Charlie Brown tree, though.

Charlie Brown trees might not be popular in Reading, Pennsylvania, but they certainly are elsewhere.

I'm stunned by the number of outfits that sell Charlie Brown trees. Apparently, outfits like Kohls and Home Depot sell tons of them. Go figure.

Big Trees, Harmony and No Worries in Vermont

While on a work assignment in southern Vermont, I stopped for a sandwich at the Harmonyville Store, in a section of  Townshend called Harmonyville.

Vermont's largest sycamore looms
over the Harmonyville Store

I have to say it was with great trepidation that I was in Harmonyville. I had this irrational thought that anybody who steps foot in this village with the melodious title would have to prove they could sing, and sing damn well.

And if the singing voice is sub-par, the village elders would stand me up in the Harmonyville Store parking lot and give me a 21-gun salute, so to speak. My funeral services would be held at a later date.

When I sing, I sound like a horny walrus with a wicked case of strep throat.   Any day now,  a military Special Ops unit will call me, whisk me away to Syria, and make me sing Lady Gaga's song "Bad Romance" outside the palace of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, as a way to finally rid that country of its embattled dictator.

Anyway, there were no embattled dictators in Harmonyville, Vermont, at least as far as I could tell. And (YAY!!) nobody asked me to sing.

Which left me time to see one of Vermont's most wonderful attractions looming over the Harmonyville Store. It's the state's biggest sycamore tree.

You'd think that's not a big deal, because I swear Vermont has, like 12 sycamore trees, total. It's practically all sugar maples, here, folks.

But this sycamore is truly amazing.  The fact that I'm telling you its 175 years old and 115 feet tall with a 63 inch diameter just doesn't do it justice. The trunk is so huge, if four NBA players suddenly decided to hug the sycamore in unison, their fingers would not meet each other.

The sign proves that the big tree
in the background is damn big

(By the way, if you ever see four NBA players hugging the Harmonyville sycamore, call me, STAT! I want a picture of that.)

The sycamore has at least seven main branches, each the size of a 150 year old maple. Even the sycamore's leaves live large. Some were almost twice as big as either of my hands.

One of those enormous branches looms directly over the roof of the Harmonyville Store.  If it ever fell, it would smush the poor little Harmonyville Store just as much as the ant I killed in my kitchen yesterday when I stomped on it with my work boots. I'm still trying to scrub the ant remains from the floor.

I asked the nice young man at the cash register about that sycamore threat. He said he doesn't give it a second thought. "I'm not the type to worry," he said with some understatement.  "Besides, the tree is leaning the other way."
I let it go at that and didn't ask the store clerk to sing, just to check. I didn't want to cause trouble.

So I went outside and ate my sandwich under that beautiful sycamore tree.  If only it could talk.........

A view looking up the trunk of Vermont's
largest sycamore tree.