By Scooter Van Neuter
Yesterday was Earth Day, one my favorite holidays. Every year this special day causes me to reflect upon Mother Earth, and what I might do to help preserve her.
I always do something special on Earth Day to nurture our planet. Last year I gassed my Corvette with premium instead of 106 octane and didn't urinate in the backyard until evening. This year I wanted to do something really special, so I decided to plant a tree.
Judging by my fatigue after cleaning the pool, it's become obvious that climate change has depleted the oxygen levels in my area, so I researched to find the most prolific oxygen-producing tree I could plant. I decided on the the Ceiba pentandra, or kapok tree. Beside producing tons of oxygen, the kapok was perfect for my yard, as just one would shade my entire property, and growing to over 200 feet tall would comfortably get above my neighbors' non-oxygen producing palm trees.
I hired a crew of botanists in Costa Rica to go into the rain forest to find a healthy specimen, then chartered a jet out of San Jose to fly the kapoc to Phoenix. I paid extra to have the flight attendants sing softly to it while applying moist towelettes to its trunk. It arrived in perfect condition.
After the transport company arrived with my new tree, I had arborists from Arizona State University move it into a temporary structure I had erected in the back yard while a hole was being prepared. After a brief ceremony of solemn prayers to Mother Earth and the symbolic sacrifice of a 1992 Chevrolet Suburban by fire, I gingerly planted the kapok tree into the earth's rich soil, where it would beautify the landscape and become a home to nature's wildlife for generations to come.
Unfortunately, later that night I found the mangled remnants of the kapok laying beside the pool, an apparent victim of my two Cocker Spaniel puppies. As I roasted s'mores over it in my outdoor fire pit I was already making plans for next Earth Day.
Thank you kapok tree for making the earth a better place.
My Earth Day kapoc tree (Ceiba pentandra)