Toomer's Oaks: A Week Before The End

Admittedly, I have had inside information on this the whole time... but, at the same time, I understand what all this means...

It starts with a phone call...
((HT: Paul Finebaum Radio Network))


And ends with either an Irish wake or a funeral- depending on your perspective... and there are those on the Plains that probably feel both and will feel both after the Auburn spring football game next Saturday...

It is being presented (saying "promoted" doesn't feel entirely appropriate) as "One Last Roll" where you can buy officially wrapped toilet paper and other memorabilia. The proceeds are going to a fund that support the Auburn University Alumni Scholarship fund and the Auburn Downtown

Merchants for various activities.

It's reverence and understanding that a rivalry has its fringe elements that will always hate (and I

Toomer's Corner From The Drugstore

use that word in its most literal form)- for whatever illogical reason. And, in talking with TBH, she was at a profound loss trying to come up with the proper words to describe the act that Harvey Updyke perpetrated on 150-year old oaks that are just as much a part of the fabric of her university as Nova, Momma Goldberg's, Guthrie's, Beard-Eaves, Sportsman's Park, Shug Jordan, Pat Dye, the three Heisman winners, and "Punt, Bama, Punt."

She tried to use unconscionable, unfathomable, evil, and sociopathic. But most sociopaths feel theirs is a level of superior intelligence over the people they have exerted some kind of control.

And, in some other peoples view, it takes a real man to take out his unfounded frustrations in a rivalry on trees. The reason that Updyke pleaded out was that the trial would still be going on at the date of the spring game- and it would be even more of a firestorm if every act was going on simultaneously than instead of getting out of the way as Updyke's attorney did.

The Never To Yield Foundation has been getting inundated with angry Auburn fans once they found out that the four-letter is coming to cover the last roll. They're not there for the spring game... just the rolling of the oaks. All of the supporters would like to treat the lucky crew they send with the same amount of respect they feel they got in the latest Selena Roberts/Shaun Assael stories.

So, what are the folks at NYT saying in return: take the high road...

Rolling the trees for the final time on April 20 is about Auburn and Auburn alone. It’s not about Harvey Updyke and his insufficient justice. It’s not about the latest shot fired in a rivalry. It’s not about sycophantic radio callers or braying hosts who encourage them. It’s not about Selena Roberts or ESPN or any of the other media minions.

That Saturday is about the Auburn Family and honoring our cherished traditions.  It’s a chance for us to say farewell to the trees which meant so much to generations of Auburn fans and to celebrate our future together.  Ever to conquer. Never to yield.

It’s about us.  Don’t let anyone or anything detract from that.

Be gracious to ESPN reporters.  Show them what Auburn hospitality is all about, even though we all may feel slighted by the attacks we’ve suffered.

So, we'll see if that ends up the case... I still think that some drunken clown will treat the reporter (my guess, Tom Rinaldi, so he can incorporate children, puppies, and crying- sometimes all at once in his post-rolling opus) much like some Rutgers kid did John Barr and his videographer...

((HT: ESPN))


But for what Updyke did, in not only crossing the line of being an Alabama fanatic but pole vaulting way-the-hell over it, he soured part of the history of the Ess-E-Cee.

Each school has it's own traditions...

If Georgia had found UGA murdered by a Florida fan, if someone had chased after Smokey in Knoxville and ended his life, poisoned Mike The Tiger's food at LSU... that's about as close as the Auburn community feels what went down. And it something that can't be erased, taken back, or made good in any way... ever...

And while the Oaks were rolled for 76 years, generations of fans in the conference will have no idea about the history of the trees- except for the ending... a brutal, disgusting, classless act that has a bit of irony now...

The irony of Toomer's Oaks- still blooming

Because of all the horticultural steroids and treatment the Oaks have been given, they still bloom even as they are dying.

So, there are those who look at the trees and feel that moment of "Hey, wait... look at that... maybe..."

And, then, the wake-up call that it's time for them to go.

All the history of celebrating countless important victories for the school- regardless of sport- will have to be partied about in an entirely different manner to be determined, agreed to, endorsed, and participated in with all the zeal of the past with a gaping hole to fill both on a four-way stop in the heart of downtown and in the hearts of thousands of alums and fans across the southeast.

TBH admits that the next time she goes to the corner it will be weird since the Oaks will be removed and something else will be in their place- probably, a plaque, a monument, or another inanimate object that's non-Spike80DF-able...

And I get it... completely... she and her family (blood or otherwise) have regaled me of countless stories about rolling trees and I have seen, in my time, the watering of the TP so the trees can be trees again.

Will fandom and fanaticism turn a corner because of the removal...???
Doubt it...

But you'd like to think someone might think a few times before doing something as astronomically stupid as dropping a pesticide deep enough into the ground to have people concerned about the water table...

Here's to Auburn celebrating like the Whos on Christmas morning on the 20th... and everyone else being respectful... even if it is just for one day...