By Wendell Phillips ‘Phil’ Berwick
I was having doubts that my plan to free fifteen families from bonded labor in Pakistan wasn’t going to happen. The closer it came to leaving, tree care operating costs were chopping my ‘freeing families from slavery money’. Then one morning as I walked with covid masked face hung low into Walgreens, clerk Derk Klaussner’s cheerful greeting that lifted shoppers out of their doldrums sounded out; “HELLO! WELCOME TO WALGREENS!” But on this certain morning, there was more: “HELLO! WELCOME TO WALGREENS! Phil, I want to help the brickyard families. PLEASE TAKE DOWN MY MAPLE TREE.”
I never removed a tree unless a customer had a good reason. My wife Theresa, who I fondly call ‘Tree’, came up with the motto: “We are in the Business of Saving Trees”. There used to be two tree companies in the region that held to that ethic of having to have a good reason in order to agree to remove a tree, then there was one. I was an environmentalist before it was popular and before it devolved into the present administrative state of ‘environmental justice’. But today, if a removal means I get to purchase freedom for a family and their children on the far side of my urban forest free world, I’ll level it, safe. And now there are none with the “For a good reason” ethic.
I had talked Derk out of cutting down his majestic Silver Maple twice before. This time I didn’t exclaim its worth to the neighborhood and value to his property“I’ll GIVE YOU A BID DERK, THANKS”. It took us three days to dismantle, shred and haul his beautiful towering Silver Maple. And it was the final amount I needed to pay the unjust ransom of fifteen families.
In the 70’s and 80’s The Elmhurst Illinois Forestry Division was chosen to field test a biological cure for Dutch Elm Disease. It WORKED, My crews were saving Elms. A chemical company who bought the rights from a remarkable scientist shelved it, determining that it ‘wasn’t marketable’. Now millions of dead American Elms later, I come and go to Pakistan saving kids from lives of modern day slavery. I still save trees over here…for a good reason.
Phil is owner of Living Tree Care and founder of Living Tree International
314-568-8367