The guy who argued with me about a dead oak for 20 minutes

I was marking a dead oak for removal outside a diner in Billings, and this older fella walks up saying I'm wrong, the tree is just 'resting'. He pointed at a single green sucker sprout near the base as proof... I offered to let him climb up to check the hollow trunk himself, but he just huffed off. Anybody else get armchair experts on every single job?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole_baker3d ago

Pulled up to a job last spring where a big cottonwood was clearly dead as a doornail. Bark was peeling off, no leaves on half the branches, and the trunk had a crack you could stick your arm into. Some guy walking his dog stops and tells me I'm wrong, says the tree is just 'late blooming' because it's been a cold spring. I pointed at the crack and the bare branches, but he just kept going on about how he's lived here forty years and knows trees. Finally I told him to come back in July when it still has no leaves and we'll talk. Never saw him again. People just can't admit when they're wrong about something they have no clue about.

seth_shah3d ago

That "I've lived here forty years" line gets me every time. Like living somewhere automatically makes you a tree expert. I see the same thing with people who've driven the same route for decades and think they know more about road conditions than the actual road crews. Experience isn't the same as expertise, @cole_baker. People just don't like feeling wrong in front of others.

parkerbrown1d ago

Man, did you ever actually see that crack in the trunk close up, @cole_baker?