Crews work to remove toilet paper from the two poisoned oak trees before spraying the leaves with a coating at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn, Ala., on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011. Harvey Almorn Updyke Jr. has been charged for poisoning the landmark live oak trees on the Auburn University campus. (AP Photo/ The Birmingham News, Michelle Campbell)Welcome to our Friday mailbag, and this one is a little longer than normal. The 5-at-10 wanted your ideas for punishment for Harvey Updyke, AKA Al from Dadeville. For those of you that live under a rock or have been searching the Interwebs for the latest cycling results from the Tour de Alps or whatever pedal-fest is going on, Al from Dadeville is a lifelong Alabama fan that has become the world’s most notorious tree killer after allegedly poisoning the 130-year-old oaks at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn. Only in the SEC right?
Here we go…
Here is the e-mail that started it:
From 33wannabe:
As a Tide fan who graduated from AU, I was sad to hear about the actions of that JackWagon in Dadeville as they have endangered one of the truly great college traditions, but I was also amused by the excessive sobbing and crying displayed by a few “weed scientists” (seriously, they were interviewing weed scientists?, seriously, they actually scheduled a Toomer’s Corner tree hug?). Does that make me a bad person? From my point of view, the real tragedy, which has been missed by everyone (including the 5-at-10) is that with all of the resources being diverted to save and eventually replace the trees, it will take another decade to raise the funds necessary to sign the next Cam Newton.