We share our grief.

I related the bad news to family and friends in this email


We have had the orange circles of death painted on our two large Elm trees. I have been praying against the obvious for the past couple of weeks, but the Minneapolis Park Board Forestry Dept. caught up with us. Our back yard will never be the same. Our daughter will be sixty before anything could grow to a comparable size. Our neighbor has lived on this block her entire life. Just the other night she said she could almost remember when these where planted.

For those not in the know, when an American Elm gets Dutch Elm Disease it is marked for removal. An orange spray paint circle around the trunk.

There is nothing that can be done, but I will have my day. I will never support the Dutch National team in international football competitions again. I will root extra hard against them in the Euro 2008 Qualifiers. GO Group G; make me happy!