# Guido's Last Hurrah: Part I



## Mapleman (May 3, 2009)

I first met Guido at the Taco House, a small, hole-in-the-wall café in the Mission. But his reputation preceded him long before I heard his Wescos tapping on the hardwood floor. He walked straight to the juke box and plunked in two quarters. Rick James started blaring out the lyrics to “Super Freak” as Guido took a stool at the end of the bar. He wore a cut-off denim shirt and Wrangler Jeans; his thighs were as big as my waist; and he wore a Raider’s cap. It was his way of pissing off all the yuppie Niner fans when he worked in SF.

Guido lived in the Oakland Hills, and he commuted to The City on the BART, his climbing gear in a Klein utility bag and his climbing saw, an 038 w/24’’bar, between his feet. For some reason, he always had one end of the subway car to himself, even though he covered the 038 chain with a sheath. 

My climbing partner, John Cozzi, had told me about Guido. He had met him at a Santa Cruz condominium complex where they were taking down big redwoods in 16-foot lengths for milling. All the climbers would lay out their steel cores in the parking lot to see who had the longest flip line. Guido had a 30-footer, so he usually got the biggest tree. Blocking down 16 feet of 28” diameter redwood from over 100 feet up was not for the faint of heart. Sometimes, no matter how hard you set your spurs, the shock of wood bashing wood a few feet below the block would gaff you out. You’d feel like a raggedy-Ann doll, dangling there by your flip line, a 100 feet up. 

Guido was never known to use a pole saw. If he ever did, I think he used it to hook in yellow fin when he fished off the San Diego coast. His philosophy was: “Give me a bigger saw.” 020s for him were anchors for his dingy. When he thought his 038 was too small for the job, he’d ask for a 056. 

When a big blow with 90mph winds came through the Bay Area one year, closing down the Golden Gate, the Monterrey pines and cypresses in the Presidio got really whacked. Guido was there with his 090 and six-foot bar making undercuts over his head. The guy had a set of cajones grandes…


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## gr8scott72 (May 3, 2009)

Citizen of our fine country or here illegally?


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## Redbug (May 3, 2009)

Continue Maple...Sounds interesting...now I'm hooked...


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## slinger (May 3, 2009)

Cozzi, Guido... Italians right

Good story ~ Big Bad Johnopcorn:


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## Brimmstone (May 3, 2009)

this definitely sounds interesting. Please continue


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## treemandan (May 3, 2009)

TreeCo said:


> What happened to the 'yawn' smiley?



Sojourn, bubba, sojourn.


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## LTREES (May 3, 2009)

*And.......*

What did you say to him?opcorn:

LT...


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## tree md (May 3, 2009)

Yes, please continue. I am sitting on the edge of my seat. Being that Guido is blocking down chunks approaching 3000#, It doesn't take to much shock to multiply those forces well over the WLL of a standard 3/4" block. I can't see too happy of an ending for Guido if he keeps living that close to the edge...


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## treemandan (May 3, 2009)

tree md said:


> Yes, please continue. I am sitting on the edge of my seat. Being that Guido is blocking down chunks approaching 3000#, It doesn't take to much shock to multiply those forces well over the WLL of a standard 3/4" block. I can't see too happy of an ending for Guido if he keeps living that close to the edge...



Aww, come-on, you and I both know that crap is there to steer the stuff a little bit. And when used in that capacity its fine.
Now I wouldn't mind the thrill of trying to land a fish like that from 100 plus feet without hitting the trunk. Its been awhile since a worked a device from the ground routinely but its a thrill for sure. In fact, I would like to get into doing more lowering so if anybody wants to give me a shot let me know.
Do they have a lowering competition? That would be cool to see.


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## treemandan (May 3, 2009)

And who ain't at least a Rick James fan? THAT"S RICK JAMES [email protected]#$ !
Hell, I hear that in the morning and well what can I say? I'm a super freak, yeah, and I'm superfreaky OHHH!


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## tree md (May 3, 2009)

treemandan said:


> Aww, come-on, you and I both know that crap is there to steer the stuff a little bit. And when used in that capacity its fine.
> Now I wouldn't mind the thrill of trying to land a fish like that from 100 plus feet without hitting the trunk. Its been awhile since a worked a device from the ground routinely but its a thrill for sure. In fact, I would like to get into doing more lowering so if anybody wants to give me a shot let me know.
> Do they have a lowering competition? That would be cool to see.



I have lowered 16' plus tops but that was natural crotching, no block. The block is the weakest link in that scenario. I don't think I'd want to block down a 16' chunk. Number 1 you would need a tag line to safely pull it over in most cases plus I wouldn't want to put that much on my block. Seems like it would be easier to do it in at least 2 pieces. I normally block chunks 4-5' because it is more manageable and easier to push off. Now that's not to say that I don't lower big pieces with the block. I lowered a good sized 25' leader with my block last month but I tip tied it where it was butt heavy and virtually no shock.


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## tree md (May 3, 2009)

treemandan said:


> And who ain't at least a Rick James fan? THAT"S RICK JAMES [email protected]#$ !
> Hell, I hear that in the morning and well what can I say? I'm a super freak, yeah, and I'm superfreaky OHHH!



I used to work in an old Rick James concert shirt back in the 90's.


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## Mapleman (May 3, 2009)

Okay Part II is coming up. I had a little trouble hooking into the wireless today. If you thought Guido blocking down 16 footers of redwood was over the edge, then you better tie in for the rest of the story.


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## Mapleman (May 3, 2009)

First to clear up a couple of points. The Coz and Guido are indeed Italianos, not illegals. Cozzi and I worked Hurricane Bob together. 

Blocking down 16-foot sticks of redwood for the mills is an ongoing pursuit in some urban areas of northern Cal, although I haven't done it myself. I have blocked down pine almost that big using an oversized block and turbo 1" bull line. For you sissies who can't accept it, who think Rick James couldn't dance you right off the floor if he were still alive, or who are bored with the story, just stop reading--it's that easy. But for everyone else, here's some more:


PART II

Guido was a hired gun—a contract climber who sold his services to the highest bidder. And in San Francisco, where 120-foot gums, pines, and cypresses grew like towering stalks of broccoli in backyards the size of an elementary school basketball courts, it was a sellers’ market. He generally made $250 a day; that was 1982 dollars, and his day was done once the trunk hit the ground or three o’clock rolled around, whichever came first. 

His ground crew’s collective disposition always lightened when Guido descended to the ground, zigzagged through shoulder-high piles of limbs he had rained down, coiled his line, and packed his gear. It would take the six-man crew another two to three hours to chip, load wood, and rake. Like pole saws, rakes and other cleanup tools were as alien to Guido as was the idea he should pace his cuts so the ground crew could keep up. The story circulating among Bay Area tree crews was that one of Guido’s exes had run off with his ground man a few years back, and ever since he’d been burying groundies with brush, often Humboldting his cuts so he could fit extra long tops into the extra tight places. 

Another story making the rounds was Guido’s cocaine use. I never heard anyone say they actually saw him packing his nose with blow, and he always showed up for work on time, but the stories persisted anyway. I glanced down to the end of the bar where Guido and a tall, lanky climber everyone called Spider were talking. Guido fingered a purplish scar on his left shoulder that disappeared into his sleeveless denim shirt, then rubbed his nose for what seemed like ten minutes. 

“Maybe there was some truth to those cocaine rumors,” I thought.



Intermission: I need to post this before I lose it as my connection is going weak.


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## Blakesmaster (May 3, 2009)

Dude. You gotta write a book.


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## slinger (May 3, 2009)

I'm goin to get a coke and Raisinetts and a littleopcorn:


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## Mikecutstrees (May 3, 2009)

opcorn: good story....


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## LTREES (May 3, 2009)

I'm logging in every 2 hrs. How much popcorn can I eat?opcorn:opcorn:opcorn:


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## Mapleman (May 3, 2009)

PART III


Spider didn’t look like a tree man. In fact, with his blond hair curling down his skinny neck to his shoulders, he looked pretty effeminate. There was a story told about him that he had climbed up the pipe housing the cables of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge in a cocktail dress and high heels. And that a steel worker had to get up early one Sunday morning to get him down. The steel worker was particularly miffed as he had to walk up the pipe as well because Spider had jammed the trap door that opened into the north tower’s elevator shaft, 400 feet above the water. 

Although it was just 11 AM, tree crews were filling up the Taco House. It was early December and what had started out as another gray, drizzly day had turned into 40 mph gale with horizontal rain. I had been working with a climber named Mike, a scientologist who would yodel after sending down big wood. We’d been taking down a big cypress up in the Castro, each of us limbing one side of the tree, and decided to knock off when we couldn’t see our ground man working the Hobbs. Mike and I were drinking Irish coffees, trying to warm up and dry out, and hoping the rain wouldn’t let up.

Mike and I were worked for Tony C., an Italian from Philadelphia who came out west and started a tree service in SF. Tony was the kind of guy who would say stuff like:

“I’d do all the climbing myself, instead of hiring you girls, but I’m the only one smart enough to run this business.” 

Or...

“I climbed a big euc once just to prove I could do it. I don’t need to do it again.”

Tony was a wannabe mobster. He would show up at the end of the job when a big tree had been whittled down to a stick, pick up the biggest saw available, knock the trunk down, then get in his pickup and drive away. He had a poster of Joe Frazier hanging over his desk, and a hand gun in the drawer next to his checkbook. When he paid you on Friday, he made sure the drawer was half opened.

Spider, like Guido, only worked in big trees. When I passed them on my way to the john, I heard him ask Guido how many bridges he’d seen yesterday. There are four bridges that cross San Francisco Bay: the Golden Gate; the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge; The Bay Bridge; and the San Mateo-Haywood Bridge. The distance from the Richmond Bridge to the San Mateo is about 40 miles. When a climber tells you it was a two bridge day, it means either he was working on one of SF’s four hills or he was in a good size tree. When a climber tells you it was a three bridge day, he was in a big tree and probably on a hill. When he says it was a four bridge day, he was in a monster tree, hill or no hill.


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## Rickytree (May 3, 2009)

ya..ya..ya.. go on! ya..ya..


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## Mapleman (May 3, 2009)

Gotta eat, be back in a few...


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## Slvrmple72 (May 3, 2009)

opcorn:


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## slinger (May 3, 2009)

opcorn:opcorn:


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## tree md (May 4, 2009)

Blakesmaster said:


> Dude. You gotta write a book.



:agree2:

Still hanging on the edge of my seat! Please continue!!!


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## Mapleman (May 4, 2009)

PART IV


Working in The City in those days was a gas. There was a small fraternity of climbers who did the really big trees. By big, I mean anything over 80 feet. Some of the monsters got close to 120’. But often it wasn’t the height of the tree, but more the size of its canopy and branches. Sometimes a big gum’s first branch was 3 feet across at the collar, and it could stretch out 40 feet with a thirty inch clearance over an adobe-tiled roof. We get those down by tying the tip with a bull line which threaded through an overhead block and then down to the Hobbs. While the branch was winched up, the climber would make an undercut, and we shoot the piece down butt first. 

There was a job we did in the Castro for two gay guys who had a lot of expensive Oriental vases and antiques in their house. They also had an overgrown ninety-foot, 69-inch diameter Monterrey cypress fifteen feet outside their backdoor of their three story condo. The backyard was an overgrown postage stamp, and the condo sat on a crowded street halfway down a hill. Wires and lack of access made it impossible to get a crane or bucket anywhere near the tree.

I think JB was climbing that day, and I was working the Hobbs. The takedown went pretty smooth except for one of the 200 lb. chunks JB pushed off the trunk broke a water pipe 18 inches under the ground. Water shot up twenty feet until we got it shut off at the main. 

But getting the tree down was half the battle. There was no garage, no gates, and no way to drag the brush and haul the wood to the street. So we went through the house—yup, all 90 feet of that cypress went in the back door, through a hallway, past a fireplace and all those Oriental vases, and out the front door. We had lined the walls with half inch plywood and covered the floors with thick cardboard. But we should have brought along some Prozac and nail clippers for those two gay guys.

Guido was a loner for the most part and never did join in on our fraternal shindigs. He didn’t have much use for small talk, pruning tools, and a lot of the ground men he worked with. But even though he seemed to enjoy heaping big loads of brush on his ground crew, underneath it all, when the chips were down, you had the feeling Guido would be there holding up the mine shaft like Big Bad John in that 60s folk song. So it was pretty shocking when we heard the news two months later…


to be continued tomorrow...


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## slinger (May 4, 2009)

Keep it comin


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## treemandan (May 4, 2009)

This is like a chapter out of my life. Who hasn't worked at Smokin Joe's House? Who hasn't hauled so much crap through a fags love shack? 
Great stuff. Where have all the good times gone?


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## tree md (May 4, 2009)

Yup, great stuff. Maple should definitely write a book. Thing is, only climbers would get what he's talking about. :monkey:


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## Mapleman (May 4, 2009)

Yeah, someone really needs to write about us in a positive light. We get no respect. Day in, day out, making the world safe from killer trees... 

I did write a novel a few years back--it's still unpublished--about a guy who travels to Russia and gets into all kinds of trouble. His name was Wesley Colter, and he was a tree man. I managed to bring a little about what we do into the story line. 

Everything I'm writing I'm pulling from memory, but I will admit to taking certain artistic liberties with some of the events and people, ie., combining separate events or characters into one entity. 

I need to get a workout in and go to the library before writing anything more. I'm enjoying it--hope you all are as well...


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## B-Edwards (May 4, 2009)

I could read a book like this. I'm not sure how many normal people would. Good stuff!!!!


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## Bermie (May 4, 2009)

This is a gas!!! ! am thoroughly enjoying it and BTW you have a great writing style!

Staying tuned for more...


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## Mikecutstrees (May 4, 2009)

Good story!!!!


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## Mapleman (May 4, 2009)

PART V


“…the clothes she wears, her sexy ways
make an old man wish for younger days
She knows she’s built and knows how to please
Sure enough to knock a strong man to his knees
Cause she’s a brick house…”

The Taco House was vibrating like the Enerzier Bunny with a dildo. It was Friday night, about six weeks after the first time I had seen Guido in the place. Any tree dude who hadn’t cashed his check already was elbowing his way to the bar to get the ever lovely Cheryl, the bar matron, to cash it for him. An eight-foot long, two handle cross-cut saw was mounted over the mirror behind the bar. Posters of topless women in chaps holding weed eaters and of climbers hanging in trees with a variety of Stihls hung on the smoke-stained walls. The captions underneath the Stihl posters read:

“Never Use a Running Chain Saw in a Tree.” 

Tony C., my employer, was there. He liked to gamble with his employees, shooting a little nine ball or throwing dice, so he could win back the money he had just paid them. If he was successful, he’d usually end the evening by dancing on the pool table. Tony C--if he wasn’t a tree man, he could have been a mouthpiece for the Mob.

Guido sat at a corner table with Geena, his girlfriend. She wore her hair in a long, dark braid, slung over her left shoulder and partially covering up a tattoo of a skeleton on a Harley waving two chainsaws over his head. She sometimes ran the ropes for Guido, and today they had been doing one of their own jobs somewhere down Peninsular in the Palo Alto area. Geena was half Mexican, half Irish, and all Amazon, just like the song on the juke box was saying...“36-24-36, what a winning hand.” 

Geena pushed back her chair and did the tree-man strut to the bar, exaggeratedly dipping and swaying her shoulders and upper body every time she bounced off her toes. I knew that walk, and I figured Guido had let her climb that day. When she got to the crowded bar, a hole opened up for her, and she reached in the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a handful of sawdust and a wad of bills. 

“Yup, if she’s buying, she was definitely climbing today. I’m glad those two are getting along tonight,” I thought. 

I felt pretty light on my feet myself, that night. I had had a three bridge day—the Golden Gate, the Richmond, and the Bay Bridge. We were working over in Chinatown at a four-story apartment building that formed a square around the largest avocado tree I’d ever seen. We climbed the fire escape to the roof where I launched into the tree after retrieving my climbing line with the hook of my pole saw. I had hit a good crotch that angled away from the trunk, and I was able to grab the branch of a secondary leader on my backswing. 

The apartment building was located next door to a fire station. And the guys stationed there must have been really bored because they started stacking the brush we were lowering from the roof. The avocado measured about 28-32 inches at the base. It grew straight up until just short of the roofline where the secondary leader took off. The tree had already been limbed out all the way up to the roof, after that it mushroomed out. By using the closest crotch to the ground crew, and with the groundies grappling pieces with a pole saw, I was able to swing all the limbs to them. They walked the brush to the street side of the building and lowered it four-stories down to the firemen. 

I chunked the rest of the tree onto the dirt and grass of the courtyard that surrounded the trunk. I had a limited impact zone, and I had to keep my pieces from bouncing around too much as it was a regular obstacle course below me, with fountains, flowering plants, lawn furniture, and smiling Buddhas. As I cut the stump and pushed it over, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, especially since all the wood was staying. Then it occurred to me—how was I getting out of there? I was in a walled in atrium, and I only saw two doors. They were both locked. I shucked my saddle and gaffs and coiled my line. Just as I wrapped up all my gear in my safety lanyard and threw it over my shoulder, an old Chinaman tapped on a window and motioned for me. I grabbed my 266 as he opened his window. He was waving at me to climb in and across his bed. And that’s how I got out of a courtyard where the last avocado tree in Chinatown grew. 


<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75qXUfp4wtw>


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## Rickytree (May 4, 2009)

I tried the youtube link and it didn't work, but keep the stories comin! Any got a pile of brush and some gas, lets get a bomb fire going!!


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## tree md (May 4, 2009)




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## tree md (May 4, 2009)

Rickytree said:


> I tried the youtube link and it didn't work, but keep the stories comin! Any got a pile of brush and some gas, lets get a bomb fire going!!



http://www.pp2g.tv/vYn17ZnY_.aspx


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## Mapleman (May 4, 2009)

here's that youtube again--I'm not quite sure how to post it so it gets you right to the site when you click onto it.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75qXUfp4wtw>

or

<http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/--2154048>

It's the same video.

Oh, I see you got it Ricky, thanx...


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## Rickytree (May 5, 2009)

tree md said:


> http://www.pp2g.tv/vYn17ZnY_.aspx



Definately cool! but some of the worst dubbing I have ever seen. P.S. I'll take the Philippino with the long hair. Dibbs!!


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## Mapleman (May 5, 2009)

PART VI 


The December Storm of ‘81 made a few climbers very rich--some of them even started their own tree services. Guido bought himself two new Harleys and a 084. I saw the Harleys in front of the Taco House as I walked down Dolores Street. The 084’s sprocket poked up over the top of the sissy bar Guido had welded behind the seat of one of the Harleys.

I was feeling particularly ripped this afternoon, walking through the Mission and having just finished a two-day removal of a big Monterrey pine near Golden Gate Park. I felt like an inch of air was beneath my feet, and all the muscles of my upper body were pulsating. I still had sap stains on the backs of my elbows and triceps, plus an assortment of pine bark cuts on my forearms, and an aroma of bar oil permeated my Carharts. But I had slipped on a fresh shirt and I thought there wasn’t a tree in The City I couldn’t handle…well, except maybe the eight foot gum growing through the middle of that trapeze artist’s house over on Gough Street. 

Guido had landed the contract for the Presidio cemetery where monster pines and cypresses had come crashing down among all the plain white stones that marked the graves of soldiers and sailors. The wind from that storm had been so bad--it was measured at over 120 mph at the Marin Headlands—that the Golden Gate Bridge was shut down for only the third time in 50 years. Observers said the span was swaying six feet in each direction. The tree contract lasted right through the summer, and that’s when Guido met Geena.

I wouldn’t exactly say their relationship was a match made in heaven, as they seemed to spend more time damning each other to hell. Their fights spawned legends. One of the particularly better ones happened after Geena didn’t let a 5/8” line run enough, and a piece of pine hurtled back toward Guido. When he tried to deflect the piece with the bar of his 056, the chain grazed his left shoulder. After getting stitched up at the local ER, the two of them went on a binge, snorting, smoking, drinking, and fighting. Guido woke up in the morning hung over and alone, sewn into his sheets.


Guido sometimes wore a T-shirt that said: “I should have been born 100 years ago.”

That pretty well summed him up, in my opinion. The saddlebags on one of the Harleys were packed with climbing gear and lowering lines, and the oversized bags on the second bulged out where a 038 and 056 had been crammed. The bars had been removed and were lashed to the tops of the bags. The counties to the north of San Francisco (Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino) were full of open spaces, big trees, wineries, and affluence. It was a tree man’s paradise in those days--getting paid under the table and moving from job to job. With a few connections, the right gear, and a hired gun mentality, a climber could live a pretty good life…


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## ckliff (May 5, 2009)

I love it! I love it! I love it! I love it! I love it!

Great stuff. One warning thought - unless I'm mistaken, anything posted on this site becomes property of Arboristsite. Right?

So, get an agreement with whoever runs the show here. Your stuff is too good to be just giving it away... Put it in a book format, a little more plot, and I'd betcha the tree catalogs would jump all over it. Best of luck & keep it comin'.


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## tree md (May 5, 2009)

Why is it I get the feeling Guido is headed for the state pen??? :greenchainsaw:


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## Blakesmaster (May 5, 2009)

ckliff said:


> I love it! I love it! I love it! I love it! I love it!
> 
> Great stuff. One warning thought - unless I'm mistaken, anything posted on this site becomes property of Arboristsite. Right?
> 
> So, get an agreement with whoever runs the show here. Your stuff is too good to be just giving it away... Put it in a book format, a little more plot, and I'd betcha the tree catalogs would jump all over it. Best of luck & keep it comin'.



Shhhhhhh. You don't want him to stop do you? Man, I've been looking forward to this saga all day.


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## pdqdl (May 5, 2009)

tree md said:


> Why is it I get the feeling Guido is headed for the state pen??? :greenchainsaw:



Because he is, like so many others,...a tree climber. For some, that is synonymous with "headed for the pen".

It's just one facet of our personalities. Collectively, we are willing to accept more risk than most people. For some, that includes the risks involved with breaking the law.


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## LTREES (May 5, 2009)

Don't you think he'd rather climb the Golden Gate bridge one final time, than go to the pen, again? Ever try to get a wild animal in a cage a second time?

LT...


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## oldirty (May 5, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> PART VI
> I felt like an inch of air was beneath my feet, and all the muscles of my upper body were pulsating. I still had sap stains on the backs of my elbows and triceps, plus an assortment of pine bark cuts on my forearms, and an aroma of bar oil permeated my Carharts. But I had slipped on a fresh shirt and I thought there wasn’t a tree in The City I couldn’t handle…





line of the night.



good read'n so far!


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## treemandan (May 5, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> Because he is, like so many others,...a tree climber. For some, that is synonymous with "headed for the pen".
> 
> It's just one facet of our personalities. Collectively, we are willing to accept more risk than most people. For some, that includes the risks involved with breaking the law.



There are just as many screw ups in other fields so put that away.


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## Mapleman (May 6, 2009)

PART VII


Sitting bow-legged on his Harley, and with his reddish-brown Fu Manchu mustache, squinting eyes, and black bandana wrapped around his forehead, Guido looked like a modern-day Attila the Hun going to war. And if that weren’t enough, the bar of his 084 rising up behind him put an exclamation point on it. 

Geena didn’t look like anyone I would like to mess with either. She wore a T-shirt that read: The Hell with your Mountains, Show me your Busch

You had to stare at the word “Mountains” to make out all the letters, and Geena took great amusement in watching people eye her breasts. Her smile was similar to Guido’s—just a little curling at the corners of her upper lip as if to say if she had enough time at the end of the day, she’d come back to kick your ass.

Both of them wore unbuttoned, cutoff jean jackets, boot-cut Wranglers, and black paratrooper boots. Geena wore a silver necklace with a two-inch black shark’s tooth and the words “Bite Me” dangling from it. Looking at the both of them as they rode away that January day, I was glad I wasn’t a Douglas fir.

From what I heard later, Guido had lined up a series of takedowns: a 130-foot Digger pine up at the PG&E plant in Geyersville; a couple of gnarly blue gums at a yuppie winery in Glen Ellen; and a diseased 120-foot redwood that overhung some 12kvs in Sausalito. It was a rare sunny January day, so he and Geena decided to ride up to Geyersville, near the Mendocino line, and work south. How Guido got a contract with PG&E I’ll never know. The engineers there were so anal, they wouldn’t let you ride the headache ball so you could get a high crotch-in. When I worked the Geyers, the crane operator and I would wait for the engineers to drive off before I clipped into the ball. But I always had the sneaky feeling they were just over the next hill spying on us.

Anyway, things started out pretty auspiciously for the road trip. Guido was already in a pissed-off mood for having to climb the Digger a second time. It sat on a thirty-foot rise and leaned out at a 20 degree angle toward a three-foot pressurized steam pipe located downhill about 60 feet away. The crane, a big construction rig, was extended out one hundred feet, plus the operator had added a thirty-foot jib. Despite parking just a few feet behind the pipeline, the operator still couldn’t reach the tops of the leaders Guido had left from the day before when he had topped out all the brush and limbs from the four leader tree. 

Guido rigged the biggest leader as high as he could. From what the operator told me when I talked to him some years later, he had the crane fully extended, and there were only a few feet of cable showing between the ball and the end of the jib. Guido repelled down to a crotch where he would have good footing to make his cuts. The wood at this point--about 65 feet up--was over thirty inches across. Before he could start his 056, the crane operated honked, then yelled he thought it was too much weight and that Guido should cut the piece higher. There was already twenty feet of stick above the point where the sling had been set, but the wood diameter tapered off quickly. 

Guido left his perch and spiked up another six feet or so. The pick looked to be about thirty-five feet, with an average wood diameter below the sling almost twice the size as what was above. The operator and Guido had agreed that the crane would break the piece off after Guido had made a step cut--cutting two-thirds through on his top cut, then making a second cut two or three inches lower and half way through from the opposite direction of the top cut. As he finished his bottom cut and flicked off the 056, Guido looked down at the crane, shook his head, and held out a clinched right fist. 

The cut looked good, but something was wrong. He clipped the 056 into a ladder snap, down climbed to the crotch where he had originally intended to make the cut, and squatted. Then he pointed his open right hand to the right and made a pinching motion with the index finger and thumb of his left hand. The boom moved slightly to the right and the stick broke off smoothly. As the operator glided the piece farther to the right, it became obvious the pick was top heavy. Geena was yelling, “What the f--k,” as the piece rotated four feet above Guido’s head and smacked the boom, rattling cables and nerves.


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## pdqdl (May 6, 2009)

treemandan said:


> There are just as many screw ups in other fields so put that away.



Nonsense. There are way more screw-ups among the ranks of tree climbers than say...Librarians. or Actuaries, or accountants, or...the list goes on and on.

Now if you compare us to roofers, or other high risk blue-collar industries: sure, they are just as screwed up as we are. If you think I am mistaken, they you either don't know much about the rest of the job market, or you are closing your eyes to the qualities of some of your peers in this industry.

:jester:

Oh! I'm sorry, I forgot. You are without peer, so that really doesn't apply, does it?


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## Mapleman (May 6, 2009)

PART VIII


How many people really love their work? I mean really love it…the kind of love where you sometimes fall asleep at night thinking of the moves you’ll be making in a big tree the next day or jumping out of bed in the AM right into your climbing boots ready to hammer it. 

I mean how good does it get to swing and dance around in trees all day: getting a full body work out; breathing fresh air; seeing views from a tall perch that maybe nobody has seen from that angle before and maybe never will again (especially when the tree is coming down); staying loose as a goose; and smelling so much like fir, pine, or euc that at the end of the work day when you’re having a beer at the local pub, a woman says, “You smell so gooood, just like a tree.” And the kicker is--we actually get paid good money to do it. It’s the closest to being a pro athlete most of us will ever get.

I was thinking about all of this as I entered the Taco House after a really drudge of a day where I had to actually do some ground work, dragging brush and lugging wood up a muddy slope to a chipper truck after I finished taking down a good size Doug fir. We were short two men on the crew that day and I didn’t mind pitching in. My boss knew where my true talents lay and I was clearing $120/day at the time (1982), so I wasn’t unduly concerned that he’d have me dragging brush on a regular basis instead of his $5/hr. ground guys. 

I had slipped off my Wescos and changed my shirt, but my work pants were caked with mud. I was glad the owner of the Taco House was an ex-climber and usually had a couple of inches of saw dust covering the hardwood floors. 

I saddled up to the bar and ordered a Guinness Extra Stout. A geek in a suit sat next to me, nursing his Long Island Ice Tea. His brief case leaned against his stool and he had his jacket opened just enough so you could see the label on the jacket’s lining. He looked to be in his late 20s, and as he nodded his head and gave me a cocky smile, he told me he was a junior accountant and worked for one of the big insurance firms over on Montgomery Street, pulling down $1600 a month. He said all of this while giving me the once over, from my doo rag down my muddy trousers to my ragged hiking boots I sometimes wore while climbing small trees or doing ground work. I let him ramble on about how he had an expense count and about the new Porsche he was test driving tomorrow. Just sat there drinking my Guinness and listening. I had done a half dozen side jobs up in Inverness on Tomales Bay over the past couple of weekends and had just cashed my checks before coming to the Taco House. 

I could tell Mr. Long Island Ice Tea, sitting there in his Brooks Brothers pin stripe suit and locking attaché case, was uncomfortable in a working man’s bar with all the logging paraphernalia hanging on the walls and tree guys shooting pool, but he wasn’t the kind to admit it. Rather he came off like he could handle a big saw if he wanted, but low paid grunt work was for the lower classes, and it was guys like him who drove the economy and provided guys like me the opportunities to work. When he was finished with his oratory and stood to leave, I offered to pay his tab. He seemed surprised, and before he could say anything, I pulled out a wad of thirty 100 dollar bills, peeled one off, and laid it on the bar.


Guido was making the big bucks too…more on that in Part IX.


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## LTREES (May 6, 2009)

OUTSTANDING !!!

I still log on every 2 hours. (when I can) to get an up date on Guido. This is more addicting than cocaine. And by the way I book alot of people in jail, I've met about a dozen climbers in a 13+ year career. Hundreds of landscapers, and thousands of preppies with drug habits.:monkey:

LT...


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## arbor pro (May 6, 2009)

there are 6 'main' tree companies in my town. 2 of the owners have been in jail within the last year for drug and alcohol charges and 1 has been 'taken into custody' several times over the past few years for acting like a nutjob in public (suicidal and clearly missing a few cards in his deck). He's been bankrupt twice already but someone keeps loaning him money to get back into business.

There was a seventh tree company owner who drowned last year while fishing on the river. It took responders several months to find his body so not much left to do an autopsy on.

Is it any wonder why the tree care industry has the 'not so great' reputation that it does with business owners like these?


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## treemandan (May 6, 2009)

luv dem hunert dollar beils


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## Mapleman (May 6, 2009)

PART IX


There are plenty of guys who use big saws on the ground. There are plenty of guys who climb with a small chain or hand saw and those who recreational climb. There are even a few guys who can look at a big tree in a tight place and divine a way to take it down, safely and profitably. But there are not many guys who can devise such a plan to take a big tree down, then take a big saw into that big tree and execute the plan, relying on nerve, instinct, experience, and quick reflexes to adjust that plan if the unexpected should occur. Guido fit into the last category.

Watching a ton and a half of Digger pine spin a few feet over your head, then kiss the boom of a 100 ton crane and rattle its cables (including the cable attached to the aforementioned ton and a half of pine) would certainly raise the hair on most people’s necks. The only thing that had scared Guido is that his heart had not skipped a beat. He certainly didn’t get that from his father, a hot-headed Italian. He got it from his maternal grandfather Dmitri, a Russian who had survived a Siberian prison camp during the 1930s. It was Dmitri who had taught Guido to tie knots and had fashioned a crude set of climbing spikes in his workshop for Guido when he was a boy. And Dmitri also taught Guido to live fearless and large. 


Once the cables stopped shaking and the piece of Digger had settled into a vertical position, the crane operator glided the pine log to a landing site, laying the piece across two old utility poles. Geena was the one who was really unhinged by the whole affair, slapping her thighs with her open palms after shaking her head at Guido. But then she unclipped the wire sling from the ball, pulled the sling back through one of its loops, re-clipped it to the headache ball, and halved the piece of Digger with two quick 038 cuts, all the while talking to herself. Guido puckered his lips and tossed the borrowed hardhat into a brush pile before clipping into an old 150-foot three strand and burning his way to the ground. He figured he’d take an early lunch and settle things down a bit…


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## pdqdl (May 6, 2009)

We must be getting close to the end, 'cause mapleman is posting these segments in smaller pieces now.


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## Mapleman (May 6, 2009)

"We must be getting close to the end, 'cause mapleman is posting these segments in smaller pieces now."

No bro, I'm having way too much fun. I write this stuff on the fly between doing other stuff. I've been at home with the flu the last 5 days though, so there might be a longer time lag between posts when I start spending more time outside...


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

PART X	


“When you know she’s no high climber
then you find your only friend,
In a room with your two timer
and you’re sure you’re near the end.
Then you love a little wild one
and she brings you only sorrow,
All the time you know she’s smiling
you’ll be on your knees tomorrow.”


We all have our Achilles heel, some chink in our otherwise impenetrable armor capable of bringing us down despite our prowess, skill, knowledge, and perseverance. For some it’s ego or anger. For others, gambling or drink. For Guido it was women and drugs, specifically, Short Skirt Sue and cocaine. Short Skirt Sue only dated tree climbers, and she had dated a lot of them over the years. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Guido had unclipped from his line and walked down the rise toward the landing. Geena stood there, hands on hips, reading the riot act to the crane operator. The poor guy couldn’t get a word in edgewise until Guido stepped between them.

“So what’s the deal, Fred, if you had let me cut it where I first set up it wouldn’t have been top heavy,” Guido said, with no trace of anger. “There’s no way that extra twelve hundred pounds or whatever was gonna strain that 100 tonner. Your boom couldn’t have been more than ten degrees off vertical.”

The operator glanced again at Geena before speaking.

“Look, with the extra weight and length of the jib, and being fully extended already, I wanted to go conservative with the first pick. I’m sorry. I’m just glad you got yourself out of the way before I broke it off. Listen, we’ll get this bastard down then the drinks are on me, okay?”

“Listen Fred, you could have killed him,” Geena screamed, elbowing Guido aside.

“Stay out of this, Geena,” Guido yelled back. “Go stack some of that brush from yesterday. Billy’s gonna be here with the chipper in a couple of hours.”

“Friggin’ women,” Guido said after Geena had left. “It’s cool. I could have went up and took out ten feet from the top to make sure it was bottom heavy. Your jib didn’t get smacked that bad. No harm, no foul. But let’s stay on the same page from here on out. I gotta keep the peace with the squaw.”

“No problems, Guido” Fred replied, tapping him on the shoulder.

The rest of the job proceeded like the proverbial “piece of cake.” By the time the operator had stowed the jib and packed away the outrigger pads, all the brush had been chipped and a logger was loading the last of the wood with his knuckle loader. Guido had bid the job at $5400. Minus crane time, chipping, knuckle loader, and a $100 he flipped to Fred, Guido and Geena netted $2850 for fourteen hours work. While Guido broke the saws down and wiped away excess oil and wood grim, Geena coiled ropes and packed gear in the Harleys’ saddlebags. One would have thought Geena was feeling pretty good with how the remainder of the job had proceeded, and with the resultant payday, but she was dealing with her own Achilles heel…jealousy.


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## tree md (May 7, 2009)

Good stuff!


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## Happyjack (May 7, 2009)

This is really good writing. I love it. If it were a book of short stories I would buy it.

Maple are you writing this off the cuff? Come on now.


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

"Great stuff. One warning thought - unless I'm mistaken, anything posted on this site becomes property of Arboristsite. Right?

So, get an agreement with whoever runs the show here. Your stuff is too good to be just giving it away... Put it in a book format, a little more plot, and I'd betcha the tree catalogs would jump all over it. Best of luck & keep it comin'."


ALL BE ADVISED:

Should anyone in any way pilfer any material from "Guido's Last Hurrah" they will have to deal with Geena, and then if they're still standing, her lawyer! Enough said...


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

Happyjack,

Yup, writing strictly off the cuff, bro. But I've been telling these stories for years. I'm just filling in what's already in my head by doing what writers do, letting a little imagination run wild.

Guido was a legend where I did tree work in Marin County. You know how guys tell stories at saw shops, right? Kind of like fishermen at the bar...


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## tree md (May 7, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> Happyjack,
> 
> Yup, writing strictly off the cuff, bro. But I've been telling these stories for years. I'm just filling in what's already in my head by doing what writers do, letting a little imagination run wild.
> 
> Guido was a legend where I did tree work in Marin County. You know how guys tell stories at saw shops, right? Kind of like fishermen at the bar...



LOL, who hasn't had that conversation with the operator? I can't count the times I've had that same exchange with crane operators. "well, if you'd have let me cut it where I planned to it wouldn't have rolled"...

Good authentic tree-man writing!


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## tree MDS (May 7, 2009)

opcorn:


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## canopyboy (May 7, 2009)

Dang, now I'm hook'd.

opcorn:


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

PART XI


There had always been a certain amount of debate as to where Guido had come from. Some said he was a spawn of Paul Bunyon and his blue ox. Others claimed he had ridden into the Bay Area from the north on an old Harley ala Easy Rider--before there was an Easy Rider--a Bigfoot scalp flapping from his sissy bar. And there were also persistent rumors he had just appeared on earth like the Immaculate Conception, fully grown with a 090, right out of the head of Thor himself. But I knew better because I met an ex-con who had done some time with Guido down in Tracey…

Guido had been putting himself through school at U of C Santa Cruz by doing tree work. In those days, the late 60s, Santa Cruz was a mixture of granola crunching, pot growing flower children; laid back surfers; gnarly hard-bitten loggers; and college professionals. Guido moved freely between all of them. He had just turned twenty and was a year and a half away from graduating. Then it happened—a chance event that can determine one’s future by how one reacts or doesn’t react, and quite often the difference between reaction and no reaction is a matter of seconds.

After dropping a medium-sized redwood between a house and garage, Guido was bucking the trunk into 16’ 8” lengths, like he’d always done when sending logs to the mill. Halfway through a cut with a 038, he was pushed in the back, bumping his left knee into the trunk and almost stumbling over the log. His boss was screaming that the logs were supposed to be 12 footers, not 16s. Guido shut the saw off, pitched it aside, and then cold cocked his employer with a straight right to the nose. His boss, a big man at 6’ 4” and 230 pounds (five inches taller and forty pounds heavier than Guido) fell over backwards, banging his head on a six inch stub and swallowing his tongue. Guido got ten years for manslaughter, being let out after three and a half for good behavior. It hadn’t helped Guido that his former employer’s family had connections with the local DA.

Guido spent his time at Tracey on the weight pile, at the library, and in the company of druggies and bikers. He added thirty-five pounds of muscle to his already buffed body and books like "The Electric Acid Kool Aid Test," Ken Kesey’s "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest," and Elridge Clever’s "Soul on Ice" to his reading repertoire. Like a virus that mutates due to its environment, prison had mutated Guido into something there was no coming back from…


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## Bermie (May 7, 2009)

Guido's getting a dark side...he started out kinda three quarters euc, one quarter oak...did something happen in his life to infiltrate that little bit of oak?
opcorn:opcorn:


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## tree MDS (May 7, 2009)

Bermie said:


> Guido's getting a dark side...he started out kinda three quarters euc, one quarter oak...did something happen in his life to infiltrate that little bit of oak?
> opcorn:opcorn:



Whats the euc/oak man thing again?? 

I remember hearing that before (and I think I know what yer getting at, lol), how does that go??


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## Happyjack (May 7, 2009)

I am really enjoying this story.


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## Mike Cantolina (May 7, 2009)

happyjack said:


> i am really enjoying this story.



+1


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

Yeah, the whole euc man/oak man thing started back in the 70s in the Bay Area: spurs vs. free climbing; brawn vs. finesse; yin vs. yang...

Part XII is coming up...


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

Oh yeah, Don Blair propagated a lot of that...I got a few stories about him too, some of them not so good...but that's for another time and place...


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

PART XII


To say Short Skirt Sue had a thing for tree climbers would be like saying the sky is blue. It was an inherent established fact, beyond dispute. And to state the inverse, that climbers had a thing for Sue, would be equally axiomatic. But it was not just any climber Sue would set her sights on. She had a special place in her heart, and in her loins, for climbers who did the “really big ones,” as she so eloquently put it. 

Sue would not have been classified as a possessor of a beautiful body by any known standard or stretch of the imagination, nor would her face have caused a country to launch a single ship, let alone a thousand like Greece had done over Helen of Troy. Rather she was one of those rare women who possess indefinable qualities that can make a man mortgage his Malibu beach house, even if he didn’t own one. It was something in the way she walked and the way she brushed her long dark-brown hair from her face. It was something that lingered in the spaces between her words when she asked about your day while taking off your climbing boots after nine hours of bombing wood. And it was something in her finger tips when she massaged you from shoulders to feet, not missing any part of your anatomy.

Guido had met Sue in 1977 while working in the hills outside the town of Sonoma, up in Jack London country. He was in the process of wrecking a big blue gum. The tree was in a field about thirty feet behind a barn, and any tree man worth his spurs could have wrecked that tree without lowering a stick.

The bottom half of the tree had been limbed out the day before, when after tying in at a strong crotch eighty-five feet up, Guido had limb walked the lower branches: taking them in two or three pieces; making compression cuts so pieces fell flat; and leaving the stubs small, just beyond the wide collars, so as to avoid chunks bouncing off the stubs when he began to chunk the tree down the following day. All the brush and wood were staying, so Guido ended his first day nicking up limbs and clearing a space so he could do it all over again in the morning. 

Doing solo big takedowns can be a tricky thing. There’s always the possibility, especially with eucs--and with some native hardwoods as well--of jamming your saw in the undercut, and also on the top cut due to euc limbs “rolling” when breaking off due to their spiral grain. Because of the extra weight of euc gum, undercuts have a habit of closing quickly, so shallower undercuts need to be made or else small face cuts. And with top cuts on large branches, sometimes it’s smart to side cut a couple of inches to limit the amount of “roll.” Getting a saw jammed in an undercut fifty feet up can be a b**ch even when you have a groundie to send up another saw. Having to leave your saw tied off to the tree while you descend to get another, then roping back up and limb walking out to the jam is a whole litter of b**ches.

Guido had done enough blue gums to avoid saw jams. But no matter how good a climber he or anyone else tells you they are, having a piece of wood flop back on your climbing line is as much a part of the job as putting on your boots in the morning. That is unless a climber uses fancy equipment and keeps his rope in coils while carrying it with him. But Guido didn’t climb that way.

But back to how Guido met Sue… 

She rented a small apartment in the converted barn and had been watching Guido work his way through the euc. Guido had been watching her watching him, and like any good showman, he was inspired to make sure his audience enjoyed the show, even if the audience thought the price of admission was free, which it rarely is. Rather than use his flip line to ascend, Guido was body thrusting up his climbing line, making sure his exaggerated hip thrusts were clearly visible to Sue. Once he had the euc limbed out, Guido started flopping pieces to the ground, using Humboldt cuts so the wood hit flat and made a big “whop” when contacting the ground. He would flick his 056 off with his left thumb, swing the saw with his left hand back to his ladder snap on his left hip, clip the saw in with his right hand from behind his back, then push the piece over deftly with the palm of his left hand--doing it with all the flair and flourish of a marching band leader twirling one of those big batons. 

About halfway down the trunk, after an especially loud “whop” on the ground, Guido over cut the next Humboldt and the piece of euc rotated a quarter turn more than usual, hitting an adjacent log and flipping backward on to his climbing rope, burying it in the dirt between two roots. His climbing rope thoroughly jammed despite all exertions to loosen it, Guido would have to spike down the tree to free his rope. Sue let him flip down the trunk ten feet or so before she opened her window and shouted, “Hey tree man, looks like you got your panties tied in a knot. Need any help?” 

And that’s how Guido met Sue.


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## b1rdman (May 7, 2009)

*Outstanding*

What a great read. The use of "axiomatic" brought you up to an 11 on a scale of 1-10 but you fell to 9.99 when you wrote "in her loins". 

Don't go romance novel on us ya here!?


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## Marty B (May 7, 2009)

*Guido!?!*

Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido!


(inhale)


Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido! Guido!


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## Mapleman (May 7, 2009)

b1rdman

What a great read. The use of "axiomatic" brought you up to an 11 on a scale of 1-10 but you fell to 9.99 when you wrote "in her loins". 

Don't go romance novel on us ya here!?



Couldn't resist it--but don't worry, this is a story of dark tragedy, not romance...


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## treemandan (May 7, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> Yeah, the whole euc man/oak man thing started back in the 70s in the Bay Area: spurs vs. free climbing; brawn vs. finesse; yin vs. yang...
> 
> Part XII is coming up...



Sounds interesting. At 5foot7, 150lbees I have to go with finesse and pretty much as much as I can. I would suppose that would make me an oak man? Whichever I am not sure.
I thought about doing some exerpts on a fellow named Simcox myself.Cept I didn't know him that long and am glad not to.


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## treemandan (May 7, 2009)

so if Guido had been a "tidy-er" climber...

I don't know if I learned this from someone but I kinda think I just figured it out ( I know, I'm great): If you make the under cut of the compression cut like makeing a dado cut on a table saw ( widen the kerf) you are sure to have good results. Make sense? I usually see lots of guys get stuck and the ones that don't make shallow undercuts. I usually have fun with this on the 44. My Goodness! Catch em right and they look like salmon jumping. see now I just came up with a new catch phrase for The Dan next time he does it, he can say " Ima gonna make this salmon jump". what a thrill.


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## Slvrmple72 (May 7, 2009)

Sounds "Fishy" Treemandan. Speaking of which, never ever give a four yr old any sort of fishing lure with treble hooks on it. Even if you have him casting from the far side of the lake you will be going to the ER. One hook is bad enough.


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

Yeah, I'm an oak man too, but with severe euc tendencies on suitable occasions--Hurricane Ivan being the last. Anyone else work that one? Pensacola looked like it had been whooped with an ugly stick. 

I mounted my 44 with a 28 incher. Probably a little overmatched, but then I don't production cut with it in hardwood. My real work horse is a 257 with a 20. Power to weight ratio is superb. Great topping saw when you need something to get out of your face quickly.


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

Part XIII coming up--a little off topic, but it's a good story.


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

XIII


The back roads of Sonoma Valley, between the mountains and the coast, pass through miles of undulating grapevines and groves of towering firs and redwoods. Open pasture lands are dotted with massive California live oaks and pungent bay trees. It is some of the most beautiful land I’ve ever seen, and if I were given the chance to enter a time machine and go to a place and time of my choosing, it would be this land before the Europeans arrived with their religions and diseases. 

The country here had been first settled by Spanish ranchers in the early eighteenth century. In the second half of the 1800s the loggers came, followed much later by wine makers and their vineyards. Dotted among these vineyards are roadside mom-and-pop taverns that sometimes have to be entered through a small grocery store selling olive oil, pastas, and a variety of Mexican food stuffs. The interiors of these taverns are quite often decorated in an Old West--Gold Rush motif, with replicas of antique rifles, wanted posters, and photos of old wineries and horse and buggies littering the walls. It was in just such a place that Geena, Guido, and Fred, the crane operator, had retired to after finishing the job up at the Geyers. 

Guido and Geena sat shoulder to shoulder, drinking Rainiers Ale and chasing it with shots of JD, while Fred stuck to his Coors. They all sat at the bar which consisted of a twenty foot long, three foot wide slab of Douglas fir. And as they lubricated their throats and tongues, the outlandishness of their stories became directly proportional to their alcoholic consumption. It was as if they were contestants in a game show where the winner would be decided by who could tell a lie so outrageous that it had to be true. Geena won, and here is her tale:


A group of Russian veterans from the Afghan War decided one day to go into the cattle business. They lived in the southern Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. During the ‘80s they had all been crew members on large transport planes carrying troops and supplies into Bagram Airbase north of Kabul, Afghanistan. 

Fast forward to 1996. Their leader, Viktor, was still a pilot. He and the other men now worked for a government-owned transport company that flew throughout eastern Asia. They hadn’t been paid in several months, so in the midst of a three-day drinking party Viktor and his drunken comrades decided to become independent entrepreneurs. The Japanese government had leased a giant cargo jet from the company the men worked for, and the vets were assigned to fly an AN-124 Condor to Japan. 
For a quarter century the AN-124 was the largest transport plane ever built. With an overhead door and retractable loading ramp mounted in its tail section, it could transport a downed American fighter jet or a Russian space orbiter. In their inebriated states of mind, Viktor and his seven compatriots reasoned it would be unconscionable to let all of the Condor’s 1,028 cubic meters of cargo space go to waste on its journey to Yokohama, especially knowing the cost of a sirloin dinner in a Tokyo restaurant. They converted kilograms of beef into square meters of floor space, and yen into rubles, determining the precise number of cattle needed to buy a vacation home near the Black Sea. The next day the veterans began their preparations. 

North of the Sayan Mountains which span the central Mongolian border, and to the east of the Yenisey River, lie lush grasslands where once Soviet agricultural production cooperatives raised cattle in order to supply beef to workers and passengers of the Trans-Siberian Railway. These farms were now manned by unpaid cowboys. Over the course of a few months, an outbreak of cow thievery commenced on the poorly guarded cooperatives that would have been the envy of any cattle rustler who ever rode the Chisolm Trail. Using motorcycles and trucks, the young cowboys herded and transported cattle to a makeshift corral in a wooded area a few hundred meters southeast of a landing strip. The strip had been built to accommodate jumbo transport planes like the AN-124s which had serviced nuclear weapon and defense plants at two ultra-secret cities of the Soviet era. 
On a raw September evening, 225 cows crowded a barbed wire pen. Riding horses and motorcycles, the Russian cowboys herded the cattle through a copse of aspen trees toward the end of a runway where the yawning rear of an AN-124 lay open like the arched entryway to a tunnel. The steel ramp rattled with nine hundred hooves as cattle jostled into the plane’s belly. Once the hydraulic ramp had been retracted and the cargo door closed, the eight-man crew prepared for takeoff. Air-traffic control and security at the understaffed airport had all received the appropriate bribes commensurate with their status. It was all systems go for Viktor and his airborne cowboys. Everything was smooth flying until the 124 hit turbulence over the Sea of Japan. The cattle spooked and broke down the barrier separating the crew from the cows. The co-pilot immediately opened the rear door and the cows stampeded toward the daylight. 

Thirty thousand feet below, Japanese fishermen in commercial fishing boats watched as cattle fell from the sky into the aqua blue sea surrounding their boats. It brought a whole new meaning to the term "sea cows."


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## Blakesmaster (May 8, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> XIII
> 
> 
> The back roads of Sonoma Valley, between the mountains and the coast, pass through miles of undulating grapevines and groves of towering firs and redwoods. Open pasture lands are dotted with massive California live oaks and pungent bay trees. It is some of the most beautiful land I’ve ever seen, and if I were given the chance to enter a time machine and go to a place and time of my choosing, it would be this land before the Europeans arrived with their religions and diseases.
> ...



What...the...all right, boss, you're kinda losin' me here. It is still entertaining though.


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## pdqdl (May 8, 2009)

With bait like that, they could just get the right treble hook and go trolling for killer whales.


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

Blakesmaster: "What...the...all right, boss, you're kinda losin' me here. It is still entertaining though."

Yeah, I got lazy last night and copied and pasted part of a story I wrote a couple of years ago. But no fear, things get back on track... Maple



PART XIV


Geena later confessed to having lifted her story from an article in a pulp SciFi mag, written by an ex-patient of a Moscow psychiatric ward. She also confessed to having embellished the details a bit after snorting a line or two in the tavern’s restroom. Still, Guido and Fred agreed her story, even though futuristic and not original, was the most outrageous one told that night.

Guido’s story was about Mike, a tree guy in the Upper Peninsular of Michigan, who was commissioned to drop a big maple with a 38-inch DBH and a blown out top. The tree stood in a thicket of brush and small trees, and leaned at a thirty degree angle away from a small woodworking shop. The homeowner said he wanted the maple down because “it smelled bad.” It was the first time in his twenty years of tree work that the arborist had heard that one. 

Once Mike had cleared some brush and debris from the base of the tree and had mapped out two escape routes 45 degrees back away from the fall line, he made his face cut. The center of the trunk was five inches of mealy grayish-brown punk, and its odor, indeed, reeked of some foul pestilence. 

Then Mike noticed that a dozen turkey vultures were perched in the tops of surrounding maple and ash trees as if watching the show. Shrugging it all off, Mike side notched the maple so the tree wouldn’t barber chair when he made his back cut. Gunning his 2100 and digging its dogs into the cambium, Mike rotated the body of the saw away from him before pulling it back to even up the cut. Big wood chips the size of snow flakes sprayed from the bottom of the saw and mounded at Mike's feet. The maple jumped off the stump with a final shudder and moan--leaving four inches of spiky hinge behind it--and crashed through the underbrush. 

The homeowner was hoping to salvage some firewood out of the tree, so Mike grabbed a smaller saw and walked the trunk out to where the tree tapered into wood the HO could handle. The trunk had split apart; the maple stench was overwhelming; and the vultures were now circling overhead. Mike put a handkerchief to his nose. The tree hollowed out about two-thirds up the trunk. And there in the hollow, between two convex pieces of maple, lay the partially decomposed body of what turned out later to be a missing twelve-year-old boy.


Fred’s story went something like this. Three lawn jockeys from Southern California decided they were tree men after they bought a forty-foot aluminum extension ladder and a Craftsman chain saw. Their first job was a 65-foot blue gum takedown next to a utility pole. The tree had been side trimmed by a line crew about three years before. The first branch, which had been stubbed back away from the wires and had sprouted with new growth, was too high to reach from the top of the ladder, so they backed their pickup to the base of the tree and footed the ladder in the bed of the truck. The ladder’s top was now wedged against the trunk almost even with the stubbed off branch. 

After considerable discussion, it was decided the shortest of the three would climb the ladder and cut the limb. Stooge number two stood in the pickup bed and steadied the ladder. The brains of the operation leaned against the truck’s passenger door and shouted out instructions. The “climber” positioned himself on the ladder’s third to the top rung, and after a dozen yanks on the pull cord, fired up the little red Homey. He then proceeded to make the desired top cut, as instructed from below, but instead of feathering the cut so the stub hinged slowly, swooping out over and past the high lines, he gunned the saw and the stub broke off more to the horizontal than to the vertical. Amperage raced from the lines to the ground, using the euc stub, the saw, the “climber,” the ladder and the Stooge holding it, the truck, and finally the boss--who was now fused to the truck’s door--as conduits. 

Guido turned to his right and stared at Fred. “So all three of those lawn geeks were fried, right?”

Fred nodded. “Yeah, and their pickup needed a new paint job too.”

Guido puckered his lips, shook his head, and looked from Fred to Geena. “Man, I’m not scared of but three things in life…becoming a paraplegic, jealous women, and friggin’ amperage.”


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## pdqdl (May 8, 2009)

Uh oh. I can see where this is going.

By the way: craftsman chainsaws have never been red that I know of. Nor Homelite, if that was the inference.


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## Tree Pig (May 8, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> Uh oh. I can see where this is going.
> 
> By the way: craftsman chainsaws have never been red that I know of. Nor Homelite, if that was the inference.



you better tell this saw then... it is very confused






so is this one


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## Taxmantoo (May 8, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> By the way: craftsman chainsaws have never been red that I know of. Nor Homelite, if that was the inference.



What's this then?
http://lansing.craigslist.org/tls/1159900232.html


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## tree md (May 8, 2009)

Wow, those are some crazy stories! I was watching some crime show a week or so back and the cops got a search warrant to look in the tree next to this guys house. They cut the tree and found a body in the hollow. Crazy Shiot!

You should definitely write a book. I would buy it.


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## pdqdl (May 8, 2009)

taxmantoo said:


> What's this then?
> 
> .....



Yep, that's red alright. I stand corrected. I wonder how old that thing is?

I see that it also had that wonderful self sharpening feature that guaranteed your chainsaw wouldn't cut anything at all.


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## pdqdl (May 8, 2009)

Stihl-O-Matic said:


> you better tell this saw then... it is very confused
> ...



I would love to say that I am convinced those are craftsman saws, but I can't see the label. That bottom one sure does look like an old Homelite, though.


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## tree md (May 8, 2009)

I have seen red and blue Homies.


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## pdqdl (May 8, 2009)

Yeah, the old blue ones were when Homelite was a respected name of saw to own. Some years ago I ran a small engine repair facility. People would bring in those ancient Homelite Zip saws and try to get them repaired.

"Sorry... There haven't been parts for that saw for 15 years."


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## brnchbrkr (May 8, 2009)

*Rep sent for*

Geena.


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## Tree Pig (May 8, 2009)

pdqdl said:


> I would love to say that I am convinced those are craftsman saws, but I can't see the label. That bottom one sure does look like an old Homelite, though.



bottom is a homie I found about 3 different saws that look like the top one that said they were craftsman but I agree no label, no proof. Lets call it a draw. Salutes all around.


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

How many of you guys have intentionally thrown a Homey, Craftsman, or other clunker of any color out of a tree?

I confess to a least one. I bought a Craftsman when my 020 went down in the middle of a job. Paid $169 and change for it. Sometime later that summer I launched it from a tree after it consistently wouldn't start, and then I ripped the pull cord out. Figured the rest of my saws would wise up after seeing that...


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

My first climbing saw was a blue Homelite XL 12--heavy bastard it was, but a workhorse.


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## Shaun Bowler (May 8, 2009)

Remember the Poulans?


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## tree md (May 8, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> My first climbing saw was a blue Homelite XL 12--heavy bastard it was, but a workhorse.



Never used an xl 12 professionally but it was the first chainsaw I ever used.

I have thrown a husky 142 out of a tree. The air filter cover was constantly falling off and it was hard starting when it got hot. Same with the old top handle poulans. Never threw one out of a tree because it was not my saw but I would cuss it like a red headed step child.


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

Question: Why did they make those Poulans green?



Answer A: So they'd get hidden in the brush and be invisible when you were bombing wood. After you smacked them, you'd be at the shop ordering Poulan parts.

That little yellow and/or green top handle baby was a hummer. Gas tank was too small for takedowns though.


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## Mapleman (May 8, 2009)

tree md: "Never used an xl 12 professionally but it was the first chainsaw I ever used.

I have thrown a husky 142 out of a tree. The air filter cover was constantly falling off and it was hard starting when it got hot. Same with the old top handle poulans. Never threw one out of a tree because it was not my saw but I would cuss it like a red headed step child."



Has Husky figured out the spark plug cover on the 335 yet? I bought mine the first year they came out. I wish I had 20 bucks for everytime I've been zapped by that thing. I've got a wad of duct tape over the cover. And to think how long that saw was on the drawing table before they came out with it. 

Oh yeah, gas tank is too small for take downs. I use mine strictly for pruning. 020 all the way, baby...


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## tree md (May 8, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> tree md: "Never used an xl 12 professionally but it was the first chainsaw I ever used.
> 
> I have thrown a husky 142 out of a tree. The air filter cover was constantly falling off and it was hard starting when it got hot. Same with the old top handle poulans. Never threw one out of a tree because it was not my saw but I would cuss it like a red headed step child."
> 
> ...



I haven't owned or used a husky since like 2001. They don't have any dealers where I live that I know of except the ranch supply stores and all they sell are the rancher pros and other home owner saws. I've only seen pictures of the 335. I did hear that they fixed the cover problem on the 142's finally. I think I was paying a third of what a 020 went for at that time for the 142. I considered it a throw away saw and figured I could throw three saws out of the tree before it cost me what an 020 would. I have since changed my philosophy. I use all Stihl saws now because there are plenty of dealers around me and they are easy to get parts for. Plus I like Stihl. 200T rocks the boat!


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## Mapleman (May 9, 2009)

PART XV


Guido had a strong aversion for bullies. And on more than a few occasions that aversion had landed him in jail. The first time was in 1963 when he was 16. But in every dark cloud…

Guido grew up in Orange County--when there were still orange groves there…in the 50s and early 60s before a second wave of realtors, developers, and lawyers zeroed in on the place like frenzied sharks devouring chum…when Interstate 5 was a four lane road and the only “freeway” in town.

He and his buddies would skip high school every Friday afternoon, load up their surfboards and buy a case of beer, then drive out to the beach, listening to James Brown and the Beach Boys. One of his friends was a skinny black kid named Applejack. He was probably the only Afro-American surfer on Huntington Beach at the time.

Over a July Fourth weekend, with Huntington Beach packed with locals and out-of-towners, Guido, Applejack, and two local white girls partied fifty feet south of the pier. Four muscle headed, drunken yahoos from Bakersfield watched the inter-racial scene from their perch on the pier. They’d been turned down by every girl they had hit on that day and decided to rectify matters by instituting their own brand of social justice. They left the pier and surrounded Guido, Applejack, and the two girls, demanding to know by what right did a black boy have to be seen in public with a white girl, especially one in a two piece swim suit. 

Guido decided to go for the biggest of the four first. He hit the yahoo square on the left side of the face with his right elbow, then whirled and grabbed the next goon by his T-shirt, pummeling him with his right fist. After he had taken the third to the ground with a sky move he’d become quite proficient at as captain of the Costa Mesa wrestling team, the remaining bigot fled the scene. One of the muscle heads got a broken jaw; another got a fractured eye socket; and Guido got a year of juvenile detention, as it was not his first offense.

Guido was raised for the most part by Dmitri--his Russian grandfather, climbing teacher, and survivor of Stalin’s gulags--and Dmitri, had he still been alive, would have been proud of the way Guido extricated himself from the Orange County Juvenile Detention Center.

In 1963, OCJDC occupied eight acres of land just south of downtown Anaheim. A dozen brick buildings comprising an administration center, mess hall, laundry, classrooms, dormitories, and recreational facilities were surrounded by a fifteen foot red brick wall topped with three strands of barbed wire. The place was lightly patrolled as climbing fifteen feet of smooth brick was not deemed possible, at least not by teenagers.

Inmates were provided with all essential hygienic products, including a daily allotment of dental floss. Over the course of six months, Guido hoarded floss. He bought it, stole it, and traded for it. He also attended welding classes where he fashioned a crude grappling hook. 

A week short of his seventeenth birthday, the floss rope attained the thickness of a phone cord, fourteen feet long. Guido celebrated his birthday with Applejack and a fifth of Jack Daniels, his future as a climber now thoroughly assured. 

Two decades later and five hundred and fifty miles to the north, Geena and Guido snorted coke and chased it with JD, celebrating the Geyser job and Guido’s thirty-fifth birthday. He sometimes mused if it might be his last...


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## randyg (May 9, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> Has Husky figured out the spark plug cover on the 335 yet? I bought mine the first year they came out. I wish I had 20 bucks for everytime I've been zapped by that thing....



Almost bad as peein on the lectric fence when I was a kid. They changed the number from 335 to 338 and made stronger clips or something cuz I never had trouble with cover on first 338. Time I bought my second 338 they put a screw bout half inch off center to hold it on for sure. Then I sprung for a MS200T "the prom queen" and the 338s pretty much stay in the saw box anymore. I hear talk of a 339 . . . not interested. 

Hey, I can see the writing on the wall about the demise of Guido, our hero. Just a simple request, that he doesn't exit stage left while doin tree work? Your audience may never recover, at least this fan. . .


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## Mapleman (May 9, 2009)

randyg said:


> Almost bad as peein on the lectric fence when I was a kid. They changed the number from 335 to 338 and made stronger clips or something cuz I never had trouble with cover on first 338. Time I bought my second 338 they put a screw bout half inch off center to hold it on for sure. Then I sprung for a MS200T "the prom queen" and the 338s pretty much stay in the saw box anymore. I hear talk of a 339 . . . not interested.
> 
> Hey, I can see the writing on the wall about the demise of Guido, our hero. Just a simple request, that he doesn't exit stage left while doin tree work? Your audience may never recover, at least this fan. . .





Like a warrior, he'll go out with his boots on, doing what he loves to do, and it ain't ridin' a horse off into the sunset...


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## Bigus Termitius (May 9, 2009)

This is good stuff.

I took the liberty of translating it into russian and I've called it Ivan's last bottle of Vodka.

It's selling on the web like hotcakes!

German edition to be available soon.

Now, I can almost afford my first 200T. 

The cover's still on my 335, but the coverless one I used to have would give me the occasional boost.

Keep it coming!


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## LTREES (May 9, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> Like a warrior, he'll go out with his boots on, doing what he loves to do, and it ain't ridin' a horse off into the sunset...



Like the jump 3/4 the way up Devil's Tower, Wyoming, you jump or climb back down.
Ever been there?

LT...


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## Mapleman (May 9, 2009)

LTREES said:


> Like the jump 3/4 the way up Devil's Tower, Wyoming, you jump or climb back down.
> Ever been there?
> 
> LT...



Down climbing--ouch!

No LT, can't say as I have been to the Towers. I've heard there's some good routes there. I haven't done a lot of multi-pitch climbs or big faces. Mostly smaller stuff, top roping off an anchor or free climbing stuff under 5.8, especially at Joshua Tree. However, when I was in Oz I did get into some bigger stuff at Arapiles (sp) located in the state of South Australia. That, was a gas!

So what's the jump? From one hand hold or shelf to another?


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## LTREES (May 9, 2009)

It's a shelf to shelf. 1 st shelf disappears into the rock w/ another rock poking out about waist high. You can't crawl in between though. On that rock there is set protection around the corner (blind). My brother set a rope in the ring, with my cousin and I holding him. He jimmied around using the protection after a long drawn out plan, the span was about 7 foot. The rock sticks out like Guido's nose. Next went my cousin, not to bad cause the rope was set. I had to unhook the rope by myself, I barely could reach it with a few attempts. You need a step to get momentum up for a jump. Told the boys to hang on and I soared like an eagle. At that height the 120' spruces looked like a carpet. The best rush I EVER had. We hit the summit at dusk and belayed down in the dark. Like watching my children being born, I'll never forget this experience.

LT...


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## Mapleman (May 9, 2009)

LTREES said:


> It's a shelf to shelf. 1 st shelf disappears into the rock w/ another rock poking out about waist high. You can't crawl in between though. On that rock there is set protection around the corner (blind). My brother set a rope in the ring, with my cousin and I holding him. He jimmied around using the protection after a long drawn out plan, the span was about 7 foot. The rock sticks out like Guido's nose. Next went my cousin, not to bad cause the rope was set. I had to unhook the rope by myself, I barely could reach it with a few attempts. You need a step to get momentum up for a jump. Told the boys to hang on and I soared like an eagle. At that height the 120' spruces looked like a carpet. The best rush I EVER had. We hit the summit at dusk and belayed down in the dark. Like watching my children being born, I'll never forget this experience.
> 
> LT...





Man, You wrote that so well, I could feel the rush. Besides the feeling at the end of a successful big tree day, I'd have to say the most alive (outside of romantic trysts) I've ever felt is coming off a big exposed piece of rock where every muscle down to my finger tips were flexed, and where there was an element of if I didn't fully live in the moment while on the rock, I might not be around to live at all...


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## Mapleman (May 10, 2009)

PART XVI


It was the summer of ’68 and Guido’s first big tree was a mossy grizzled Douglas fir in the Santa Cruz Mountains that topped out at 175 feet. He climbed it with a pair of gaffs he borrowed from an “old timer” who’d been waiting for a rookie to show up to climb a tree he was either unable and/or unwilling to climb. This so called old timer, Frenchie, used to climb the big ones until he got soft, obese, and had experienced the effects of the “virginal wrench.” (Actually old timer is a bit of a misnomer, as Frenchie had just turned thirty-six.) Seems Frenchie had lost his nerve as well as his waistline, and the final nail in his coffin was when his wife threatened to leave “if you keep climbing those damn widow maker firs.” 

Guido didn’t mind. He was twenty-one and full of testosterone. And it was obvious Frenchie knew his way up and down a tree, even if he wasn’t quite up to doing it anymore. So what if he was only paying $3.50/hour. Guido learned fast, and he knew that after this tree, he’d be able to get the “big bucks” he was sure Frenchie was making on this Doug fir. 

Big Doug firs are great to work in, once you get up in them. But that’s the rub…getting up in them. Some guys shot lines in them with crossbows or homemade “line guns” similar to what is used to shoot lines from ship to ship while out at sea. (This was long before modern day toys like Big Shots). But everyone I knew climbed the monsters the old fashion way—with spurs and a manila steel-core flip line. The feature that made climbing Dougies so maddening is their profusion of stubs, and to a lesser degree, dead branches, that pockmarked the trunk for the first fifty plus feet before you hit the first real branch. Sure, I can hear you now: “So just cut them off.” Problem is that when you are in four and a half to five foot diameter wood, and that little seven inch stub is on the backside of the tree, you have to squirrel around the trunk in order to knock that puppy off. Oh yeah, did I mention that there is a profusion, as in a ton, of these stubs on really big Doug firs.

Frenchie used a one-inch steel pipe to knock the suckers off, and that’s what he gave to Guido. A hole was drilled in one end, and a quarter inch line hooked to a primitive beaner secured it to the ring of a climbing saddle. Any stubs that could not be dispatched with the pipe were cut off with a climbing saw, which in those days was most likely a “small” Homelite or McCollough—both rear handle, all metal saws. Still, it was no walk in the park. Invariably the flip line found something to get caught on: a small protrusion of wood, a furrowed piece of bark, or a gnat’s ass. 

Guido spiraled up the tree—to his later regret—popping stubs and cutting dead branches. When he got to the first live branch, he snorted. Now all he had to do was get up and over the branch. But first he had to free his friction bound rope which was whirled around the trunk several times. But as I said, Guido was twenty-one and full of testosterone… 

Some guys use two flip lines, a kind of a catch and release deal, to navigate branches. Others toss their climbing line and try to lasso an overhead limb. This process will usually have to be repeated for a while, at least until the limbs are close enough together that, standing on one, you can reach up and grab the next, then perform a move something similar to what rock climbers call a “mantle”: Do a pull up, kick a leg over the branch, pull up again until you’re chest high with the branch, then push down on the limb with your palms into a straddle position. Guido used this method. No one taught it to him. It just came natural.

The Doug fir was obviously too big to drop from the ground or otherwise Frenchie would have done it, and Guido wouldn’t be climbing it. Fifty feet or so needed to be taken out of the top to fit the tree into the desired “hole.” Some of the longer branches needed to be cut also, and Frenchie shouted out instructions, cupping his hands around his mouth and bellowing like a bull horn. Guido noticed straight away that the limbs were strong with clean tight grain, so he had no second thoughts about monkeying up the tree without a tie in. He felt he was in his natural element, like an orangutan in the wild, with no one around to look over his shoulder and say do this or don’t do that. Even the boom box of a Frenchman, 130 feet below, could not disturb his state of mind. 

Guido picked out a suitable place to make his top cuts. He snapped his flip line in just below a particularly strong branch so as to protect against bark and wood flaring out from the sides and catching his core rope should the top break unevenly or too quickly. He planned to make the bottom of his face cut about eighteen inches up from his flip line. Once he was tied in, he limbed off everything on the back side of the 26-inch trunk within reach, then made a face cut a third of the way through the front side. The top had lean and weight in the direction of the fall, so Guido side notched the tree before making his back cut to lessen the chance of it barber chairing. 

He had switched over saws, from a Homelite XL 12 to a 700 McCollough. Guido full throttled the saw several times to assure himself the McCollough was running smooth and strong then bit into the wood. He had cut less than halfway through the fir when the top started to lift off the back side of the trunk. Guido bit in further, carving out several more inches of wood before pulling the saw free from the cut and snapping it into his belt. The top now leaned at a forty-five degree angle and was pushing back against the standing part of the tree.

Guido watched, as several tons of wood literally jumped in the air and sailed through space to the ground--all the while he hugged the fir as it rocked backwards for what seemed six feet then forward another six. The rocking continued for a good ten seconds before gradually diminishing to a tremble. Guido let out a war whoop. He was hooked...like a cowboy on a rodeo bull.


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## a.k. (May 10, 2009)

I'm lovin' this.

Blaze of gloy? Nah, long live Guido!


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## Mapleman (May 10, 2009)

PART XVII



Regina Gabriella O’Leary was a native of San Francisco and a decade younger than Guido. Her father, Sean, a red-headed Irishman, owned a tree service and had tried to pass his climbing skills on to his three sons. They never picked up on the trade, but Sean’s youngest child, Geena, did. She also picked up Sean’s feistiness, grit, and love of Guinness.

Geena worked for the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department, being the only female climber in a crew of fifteen at Golden Gate Park. Even though SF prided itself as a “liberated” city, and despite the women’s lib movement having been initiated over a decade before, being a female blue collar worker on an all male crew in the late 70s could be daunting. But not for Geena. Growing up with three older brothers had inured her to all the sexual innuendos, crude language, and crass behavior. She gave back with a double dose everything thrown her way by her fellow climbers, until one day it all stopped. Well, maybe not everything, as a more insidious mind set was at work.

All the other climbers, despite the crudeness and sexual insensitivity they displayed in those early days, had from almost the very beginning accepted Geena as an equal and judged her by what she could do rather than by who she was. But not so with her foreman.

Tremont Bolowalski, or TreeBo as his employees called him, never had gotten higher in a tree than a fifteen foot dogwood. But he had read all the books and took the tests, and delighted in writing “certified arborist” every time he signed a check. He also delighted in lecturing his employees on correct arboricultural and climbing practices, as well as tutoring them on appropriate behavior and language, vis-à-vis, sexual harassment and male chauvinism. He puffed up with pride when he did this, feeling himself a champion of equal rights for women. But underneath his veneer of pious equanimity lurked the heart of a hypocrite, as Geena was to find out.

After three years on the job, Geena had risen to lead climber, and Tremont had been promoted to chief groundskeeper at Golden Gate Park. When it came time for TreeBo to name a new foreman for the tree crew, he passed over Geena and appointed a man much less qualified. Despite all his sermons, TreeBo felt threatened by anyone more skillful than he, especially if that someone turned out to be a woman.


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## brnchbrkr (May 10, 2009)

opcorn:


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## TreEmergencyB (May 10, 2009)

man this good story got me thinking, i wanna do BIG trees here in pa about 100' is tops i wanna do the tree that i need a bigger saw then 200t at 100', any suggestions cali prolly the place to go for that huh?

anyone out there wanna let me climb for a week or so out there!!!


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## brnchbrkr (May 10, 2009)

brnchbrkr said:


> opcorn:


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## Mapleman (May 10, 2009)

PART XVIII


“You know wine and women
Is all I crave,
A big bad woman’s
Gonna carry me to my grave.

Born under a bad sign
I’ve been down since I began to crawl,
If it wasn’t for bad luck
I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”


Guido and Geena both had a strong repugnance for pompous, anal retentive bosses like Geena’s ex-foreman, TreeBo. And ironically, it was this repugnance that initially drew them together. 

Guido had a run in with TreeBo several months before he and Geena met in the Presidio during the cleanup from the Storm of ‘81. It was at a tree jamboree at the Napa County Fairgrounds in August, 1980. TreeBo--Treemont Bolowalski to his friends--was one of three judges in a climbing competition that Guido had entered. It was a timed event with a static line crotched high in a large valley oak. The climber was required to limb walk a half dozen branches--maintaining a minimum of slack in the line--and pluck a ribbon from an oak shoot three-quarters of the way out on the limb. After gathering in the last ribbon, he then had to climb to where the line was crotched and ring a bell, before repelling to the ground. 

Guido was the last competitor, as the event proceeded in alphabetical order and there was no one else with a name that started with a “Z.” Not only did he win the event, breaking the previous record by a full twenty-five seconds, but he did it barefoot. And just to drive an exclamation point into the whole affair--which Guido thought to be a rather stuffy one--he did his repel upside down, gripping and pulling the rope’s taut hitch between the first two toes of his right foot. This act of bravado was seen as an affront to those who wore their certified arborist credentials on their sleeves like strutting peacocks in full bloom, and Guido was disqualified and ejected from the jamboree by TreeBo and the two other judges--all non-climbing “certified arborists.” 

When Geena mentioned she had just resigned as lead climber in Golden Gate Park in protest of being passed over for the foreman job, and that TreeBo was the man responsible for it, Guido looked up. Geena said all of this as Guido stepped out of his saddle and undid the straps of his spurs. He stood and shook his head.

“Yeah, I met the twerp at a tree man’s rendezvous up in Napa. He’s a wannabe, thinking if he hangs out with climbers long enough he’ll be one. That clown couldn’t climb out of a paper bag if he stood on all the licenses and certifications from here to Kalamazoo.”

Geena let out one of her belly busting laughs she was known for. She had been watching Guido climb and thought he moved through a tree smooth and fast, especially for a big man. And if that weren’t enough, what he had just said about TreeBo pretty much sealed the deal for her. Unfortunately, it also sealed the deal for Guido, as circumstances one year hence would bear out.


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## outofmytree (May 11, 2009)

Need more coffee, must stay awake to finish the story........ opcorn:


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## Mapleman (May 11, 2009)

I'm working on the last episode--a fairly long one--right now. Should be out later tonight.

Cheers


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## Mapleman (May 11, 2009)

TreEmergencyB said:


> man this good story got me thinking, i wanna do BIG trees here in pa about 100' is tops i wanna do the tree that i need a bigger saw then 200t at 100', any suggestions cali prolly the place to go for that huh?
> 
> anyone out there wanna let me climb for a week or so out there!!!




I've wrecked some big trees in VT--115 foot white pines at a campground. If I'm topping those at the 80 foot mark or so, sometimes I need to switch over from my 020 to 026 with an 18 incher. 

If you want to consistently be in big wood with a bigger saw, it's the northwest--Bay Area, Portland, Seattle are good areas to make cold calls to tree outfits. Smaller cities like Eureka can be good too. But with the way the economy is now, it could be a challenge finding work. Having said that, climbers who can do the big ones, day in and day out, are worth their weight in gold, so some outfits are always looking. 

Try using the internet yellow pages and making a few calls. If nothing else, it will be enlightening...


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## asthesun (May 11, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> I've wrecked some big trees in VT--115 foot white pines at a campground. If I'm topping those at the 80 foot mark or so, sometimes I need to switch over from my 020 to 026 with an 18 incher.
> 
> If you want to consistently be in big wood with a bigger saw, it's the northwest--Bay Area, Portland, Seattle are good areas to make cold calls to tree outfits. Smaller cities like Eureka can be good too. But with the way the economy is now, it could be a challenge finding work. Having said that, climbers who can do the big ones, day in and day out, are worth their weight in gold, so some outfits are always looking.
> 
> Try using the internet yellow pages and making a few calls. If nothing else, it will be enlightening...



big conifers are easy. i wish thats all we had to deal with here. i could do gigantic pines day in and day out no problem. pay me 170 lbs in gold!


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## Mapleman (May 11, 2009)

asthesun said:


> big conifers are easy. i wish thats all we had to deal with here. i could do gigantic pines day in and day out no problem. pay me 170 lbs in gold!



Nothing is easy in a campground, dude. There's trailers, electric lines, water pipes, sewer pipers, decks, BBQs, sheds, fireplaces, boats--you get the picture? It's not how big the tree is sometimes, but where it stands.

I wonder how you do pruning big live oaks--oh yeah, I forgot, you spike everything.


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## asthesun (May 11, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> Nothing is easy in a campground, dude. There's trailers, electric lines, water pipes, sewer pipers, decks, BBQs, sheds, fireplaces, boats--you get the picture? It's not how big the tree is sometimes, but where it stands.
> 
> I wonder how you do pruning big live oaks--oh yeah, I forgot, you spike everything.



i do quite well with spiking live oaks. i really do very little 'pruning'. i just cut off large limbs over houses or other obstacles. i'd love to get into an area where there were nothing but tall straight conifers. thats totally easy imo. limb, limb limb, top, wood, wood, wood, etc. dont get me wrong, i've seen some hairy pines before, but they are the exception not the norm


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## Shaun Bowler (May 11, 2009)

It would be very difficult to show up in Nor-Cal and have any tree service hire you to do "Biguns'" without trusting you.
We have here lots of HUGE trees. Eucs, Bays, Elms, Sycs, all surrounded by homes, and all the things that everyone of us out there work with every day.
In the SF Bay area these things are really big, and twisted. 
Eucs were brought here in the gold rush era from Australia for ship building.
Due to the weather the Eucs here grew much faster than in AU and the grain of the wood was convoluted: no good for anything but windbreaks and firewood. Euc firewood is even dangerous because it burns so hot.
Like anywhere we work in the world, trees are the entity that dictate to us how we work with "them".
I learned that lesson a long time ago, that is why I am still doing it.


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## Mapleman (May 12, 2009)

Shaun Bowler said:


> It would be very difficult to show up in Nor-Cal and have any tree service hire you to do "Biguns'" without trusting you.
> We have here lots of HUGE trees. Eucs, Bays, Elms, Sycs, all surrounded by homes, and all the things that everyone of us out there work with every day.
> In the SF Bay area these things are really big, and twisted.
> Eucs were brought here in the gold rush era from Australia for ship building.
> ...





Right on, bro.


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## chip's-tree (May 12, 2009)

mapleman 
great story
keep them coming....


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## Mapleman (May 12, 2009)

chip's-tree said:


> mapleman
> great story
> keep them coming....



I'm over at the other thread--THE LAST EPISODE


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## TreEmergencyB (May 12, 2009)

Shaun Bowler said:


> It would be very difficult to show up in Nor-Cal and have any tree service hire you to do "Biguns'" without trusting you.
> We have here lots of HUGE trees. Eucs, Bays, Elms, Sycs, all surrounded by homes, and all the things that everyone of us out there work with every day.
> In the SF Bay area these things are really big, and twisted.
> Eucs were brought here in the gold rush era from Australia for ship building.
> ...



how they ever gonna trust anyone with seeing them do it, they dont trust everyone the hire off the bat. And just cause there bigger than what i got in PA its still the same concept just bigger wood, limbs, trees, and oh yea bigger rope. Its the same thing if the tree 60' or 160' just different scale.

Im sure i could do biguns!!


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## asthesun (May 12, 2009)

TreEmergencyB said:


> how they ever gonna trust anyone with seeing them do it, they dont trust everyone the hire off the bat. And just cause there bigger than what i got in PA its still the same concept just bigger wood, limbs, trees, and oh yea bigger rope. Its the same thing if the tree 60' or 160' just different scale.
> 
> Im sure i could do biguns!!



you prolly can. them people just think they're special and their trees are bigger than anyone elses. well, special olympics aren't in town so just go home


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## TreEmergencyB (May 12, 2009)

we got some pretty wicked white pine around here there not that tall but they all grow different. First time i grounded one of them couldnt belive limbs off a pine tree the more resembled another tree. Id think trees with a MASSIVE canopy are harder then tall trees


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## tree md (May 12, 2009)

It helps to learn on large trees. I learned tree work in GA where the trees are a hell of a lot bigger than where I live now. Nothing as big as they have on the West coast but some pretty good sized trees. I worked for a few companies that mostly did large removals. Two of the services I worked for had cranes and I rode around with the crane and did aerial lifts for the most part. It was excellent experience for me. The trees where I live now are nowhere near as tall or as large as where I come from and learned on. They are a piece of cake to me. I do a lot of work that others walk away from. I advertise for the ones no one else wants to touch in fact. Learning on big trees will give you a huge advantage.


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## TreEmergencyB (May 12, 2009)

tree md said:


> It helps to learn on large trees. I learned tree work in GA where the trees are a hell of a lot bigger than where I live now. Nothing as big as they have on the West coast but some pretty good sized trees. I worked for a few companies that mostly did large removals. Two of the services I worked for had cranes and I rode around with the crane and did aerial lifts for the most part. It was excellent experience for me. The trees where I live now are nowhere near as tall or as large as where I come from and learned on. They are a piece of cake to me. I do a lot of work that others walk away from. I advertise for the ones no one else wants to touch in fact. Learning on big trees will give you a huge advantage.



I'd loved to do a crane job! only ever grounded them, set some chokers and rode the hook b4 but boss man didnt wanna let me cut, lol i was pretty green


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## Mapleman (May 13, 2009)

TreEmergencyB said:


> how they ever gonna trust anyone with seeing them do it, they dont trust everyone the hire off the bat. And just cause there bigger than what i got in PA its still the same concept just bigger wood, limbs, trees, and oh yea bigger rope. Its the same thing if the tree 60' or 160' just different scale.
> 
> Im sure i could do biguns!!




Sorry to break your bubble, but it ain't the same. I've climbed east coast, west coast, northeast, southeast, etc, etc. On a daily basis, doing big trees in San Francisco is a whole 'nother level to anything I've done or seen before. Thems the facts. But don't take my word for it, go out there yerself. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that an individual tree or an individual job located in PA, OK, or Chicago could not be as challenging as trees in SF. What I am saying is that, in my 30 years of experience, day in and day out, the trees and tree situations in SF are a whole other animal.

I believe what Shaun was trying to say as far as the trust issue is that any competent tree service owner is not going to turn you loose on a 8-foot DBH blue gum that spreads out over 10 million dollars of residential property until he sees what you can do with something a little less, shall we say, challenging.

Also, although the basic principles of tree work apply whether a tree is 60 feet or a 160 feet, not so with the inherent anxiety factor of working in massive trees in extremely tight spaces nor taking out leaders the size of east coast trees.


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## Mapleman (May 13, 2009)

tree md said:


> It helps to learn on large trees. I learned tree work in GA where the trees are a hell of a lot bigger than where I live now. Nothing as big as they have on the West coast but some pretty good sized trees. I worked for a few companies that mostly did large removals. Two of the services I worked for had cranes and I rode around with the crane and did aerial lifts for the most part. It was excellent experience for me. The trees where I live now are nowhere near as tall or as large as where I come from and learned on. They are a piece of cake to me. I do a lot of work that others walk away from. I advertise for the ones no one else wants to touch in fact. Learning on big trees will give you a huge advantage.





Great advice. Crane work rocks.


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## Mapleman (May 13, 2009)

asthesun said:


> you prolly can. them people just think they're special and their trees are bigger than anyone elses. well, special olympics aren't in town so just go home




I'm assuming you wrote that tongue in cheek, or maybe not. No one thinks they're special except people who call themselves treemen and spike trees they're pruning. I know you said you're in it for the money, so here's a quick rich scheme for yer'.

Have your friends buy you for what you're really worth, then have them sell you for what you think you're worth.


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## Slvrmple72 (May 13, 2009)

The great trees beckon to the heart of the climber. His soul aches for the freedom that only facing his anxiety will give. In the midst of this work one must pause and wonder which has the greater spirit. Those who do not know have been crushed in their folly. The trees will not remember us when we are gone they will have their water and sunlight. We are but mere shadows to them.


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## Mapleman (May 13, 2009)

Slvrmple72 said:


> The great trees beckon to the heart of the climber. His soul aches for the freedom that only facing his anxiety will give. In the midst of this work one must pause and wonder which has the greater spirit. Those who do not know have been crushed in their folly. The trees will not remember us when we are gone they will have their water and sunlight. We are but mere shadows to them.




I like the idea that I'm a custodian to the oldest and largest living things on the planet, but in the end, that's all I am--a custodian. Trees deserve respect, even when being removed...


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## asthesun (May 13, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> I'm assuming you wrote that tongue in cheek, or maybe not. No one thinks they're special except people who call themselves treemen and spike trees they're pruning. I know you said you're in it for the money, so here's a quick rich scheme for yer'.
> 
> *Have your friends buy you for what you're really worth, then have them sell you for what you think you're worth*.



if the had the trillions of dollars needed to do that, they'd break even.


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## Mapleman (May 13, 2009)

asthesun said:


> if the had the trillions of dollars needed to do that, they'd break even.



Dude,

You're such a cliche I've written you into the story, and it ain't Guido or Geena...


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## TreEmergencyB (May 13, 2009)

i know i just cant show up at someones company and expect to get thrown into the 250 footer or anything like that but, they got to sometime ya know after they see you do a smaller tree they will let u do a big one. Its the same wherever you are here around pittsburgh we got trees that hang over millions of dollars of houses,cars, etc. I really just want to do one HUGE tree more tall than anything, cant wait for the rush of poppin the top and watching it fall 150 or so. And for having the sack the be that high i worked on cell phone towers for a summer about 300 feet metal that sways in the wind when u up there so the height wont bother me. Plus i would rather fall out of a 150' tree then fall 30' because you fall at 150 your dead wont feel a thing you bounce from 30' and alot survive to suffer.


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## tree md (May 13, 2009)

TreEmergencyB said:


> i know i just cant show up at someones company and expect to get thrown into the 250 footer or anything like that but, they got to sometime ya know after they see you do a smaller tree they will let u do a big one. Its the same wherever you are here around pittsburgh we got trees that hang over millions of dollars of houses,cars, etc. I really just want to do one HUGE tree more tall than anything, cant wait for the rush of poppin the top and watching it fall 150 or so. And for having the sack the be that high i worked on cell phone towers for a summer about 300 feet metal that sways in the wind when u up there so the height wont bother me. Plus i would rather fall out of a 150' tree then fall 30' because you fall at 150 your dead wont feel a thing you bounce from 30' and alot survive to suffer.



The trick is to not fall at all grasshopper. There's no living in dieing.

You need to hook up with a company or treeman who is willing to teach you and let you climb. Of course no one is going to let you start off doing removals over million dollar homes but if you show enthusiasm and the aptitude to learn you'd be surprised how fast some will advance you. There are not a lot of people out there that can do this stuff. The field is wide open for you. Best of luck!


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## Mapleman (May 14, 2009)

TreEmergencyB said:


> i know i just cant show up at someones company and expect to get thrown into the 250 footer or anything like that but, they got to sometime ya know after they see you do a smaller tree they will let u do a big one. Its the same wherever you are here around pittsburgh we got trees that hang over millions of dollars of houses,cars, etc. I really just want to do one HUGE tree more tall than anything, cant wait for the rush of poppin the top and watching it fall 150 or so. And for having the sack the be that high i worked on cell phone towers for a summer about 300 feet metal that sways in the wind when u up there so the height wont bother me. Plus i would rather fall out of a 150' tree then fall 30' because you fall at 150 your dead wont feel a thing you bounce from 30' and alot survive to suffer.




TEB,

It sound like you have the motivation and the nerve to do the "biguns," and that's half the battle, now you just need the experience. Different species of trees in different parts of the country at different times of the year have their own pecularities: elm has stringy bark and sometimes if you don't side notch chunks the bark will strip on you and canter the piece 20 degrees from where you wanted it to go Seasonal sap flow in certain trees can also effect the way they break. 

And out in the SF area there's a tree called a Bishop Pine. It gets big--massive trunk and canopy that mushrooms out making the tree "top heavy." These trees often have internal cankers due to branches that have broken off and "grown inward" sort of like an ingrown toe nail. There have been guys not experienced in doing Bishops that knock the tops out in one or two shots--and I guess you can see where this is going. The trunk shakes when the top breaks off and then snaps off at a canker halfway up the trunk and twenty feet below the climber.

A lot of the bigger services run several crews. Usually one of them does nothing but the "biguns." Starting out on one of the other crews and working your way up (pun intended) is an option. Another one is to work in a rural area where there are big trees in more open spaces. Sometimes you can hook up with an old timer--like Frenchie--who's been saving a few 150 footers for the young guns. I can suggest a few places if you contact me privately.


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## TreEmergencyB (May 14, 2009)

Mapleman said:


> TEB,
> 
> It sound like you have the motivation and the nerve to do the "biguns," and that's half the battle, now you just need the experience.



:agree2:
rome wasnt built in a dayi know ima just keep doing what im doing and getting better really dont like this company im workin for now seen a hiring sign for another gonna call them, my last boss worked for them a little the owner won a cpl comps isa certfied and they have a couple crews so im sure i can really learn the ins and outs there

first guy i worked for was a great tree guy taught me more than anyone else and could do anything with rigging ropes

2nd was just getting out on his own and thought his jobs went better when he was on the ground gave me lots of time in the tree.....when he had work...sry gotta pay bills

now my boss is spiker and yells for :censored: that his fault always in a bad mood which disturbs me but got the hours i need so im tied right now


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## Mike Cantolina (Aug 17, 2011)

Whatever happened to Mapleman?

What a storyteller!


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## beowulf343 (Aug 17, 2011)

Mike Cantolina said:


> Whatever happened to Mapleman?
> 
> What a storyteller!



+1

Thanks for reviving this thread, mike, it is a good story. Funnily enough, i missed the original posting because i was out west climbing the big ones.:msp_biggrin:


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## Toddppm (Aug 17, 2011)

Mike Cantolina said:


> Whatever happened to Mapleman?
> 
> What a storyteller!


 
Was thinking about these posts the other day and couldn't remember the name. Thanks. 

I think he got tired of somebody messing with him and left?


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## Shaun Bowler (Aug 17, 2011)

I have been waiting for this to comeback to the site.
I was a member of of this posse.
I thought there was going to be more..
Great story telling.
As much as I can recall this story is all truth.
If you are over 40 you will really enjoy this "Story." 
If you are @ 30 years old, you won't get it


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## Mike Cantolina (Aug 17, 2011)

The rest of the story: http://www.arboristsite.com/commercial-tree-care-climbing/98902-5.htm


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## tree md (Aug 18, 2011)

The legend of Guido... Guido will never be forgotten...

Great story.


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## newsawtooth (Feb 4, 2012)

A bump for our own George Washington Hayduke as relayed by the talented and enigmatic, Mapleman . Guido lives!


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## mattfr12 (Feb 4, 2012)

someone find this guy and bring him back.


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## BigUglySquirrel (Feb 6, 2012)

Mapleman said:


> tree md: "Never used an xl 12 professionally but it was the first chainsaw I ever used.
> 
> I have thrown a husky 142 out of a tree. The air filter cover was constantly falling off and it was hard starting when it got hot. Same with the old top handle poulans. Never threw one out of a tree because it was not my saw but I would cuss it like a red headed step child."
> 
> ...



Husky 338xp....at least 2 of them that I clearly remember...on seperate occasions. Went to 020T. Problem solved.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk


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