Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas by Richard Mason---Downtown Trees

Arkansas by Richard Mason : Arkansas by Richard Mason---Downtown Trees:      ARKANSAS                                     BY                     Richard Mason                           DOWNTOWN TREE...

Arkansas by Richard Mason---Downtown Trees

     ARKANSAS

                                    BY

                    Richard Mason

                          DOWNTOWN TREES

In many of our towns and cities, downtown improvement associations, city governments, and interested individuals have joined together to plant trees. They look nice, and many of them cover‑up some unsightly architecture.  But do trees in our downtowns provide other uses?  How about wildlife habitat, lower utility bills, and ambiance? Let's take a close look at downtown trees. 

First, let me say that my hometown, El Dorado, has a master plan for downtown tree planting.  The year by year implementation of this plan has resulted in over 1000 trees planted.  My comments here are being written as I look into a downtown that is literally full of trees. El Dorado's downtown trees are a mix of Ornamental Bradford Pear, Live Oak, Red Oak, Sycamore, and Sweet Gum extending out over a twenty block area. As our trees mature, they rise above the mostly two story buildings in the downtown, and as they have gotten larger, their use by wildlife has increased.  Numerous downtown trees are now roosting areas for a wide variety of birds.  Granted, not all of our downtown birds are the most desirable of the species, but on the whole, the cumulative effect of several thousand birds in a downtown is positive.  As the trees get larger, nesting occurs.  On a recent trip to Houston, I passed a mall with several Bradford Pear Trees planted in a parking lot.  In one tree, I counted six nests.  In several major cities, the downtown trees which attract a general mix of smaller birds, have brought in hawks and falcons, which prey on these birds.  Several falcons have even nested on building ledges, adapting to tall buildings as if they were mountains.  Recently in Chicago, one of the most popular public television programs was a still television camera trained on a falcon's nest.

            Spring comes to my downtown with the Bradford Pear Trees in full bloom.  Honey bees by the thousands invade the city to work the pear blossoms.  In the fall as acorns fall from the numerous oaks, birds feast on the acorns crushed by cars or pedestrians.  At night, when the city sleeps,  numerous opossums, raccoons, and skunks roam our back alleys, and our trees serve as a place of refuge or as a spot to prey on the roosting birds. Just the presence of hundreds of trees in an otherwise sterile downtown setting is conducive to wildlife.  Birds crossing from one area to the next pause in our trees. 

Across the country, thousands of trees have been planted in downtowns.  Each one of these trees is looked upon by wildlife as either a source of food or shelter.  When the tree planting is supplemented by the addition of shrubs or other low bush planting, the wildlife usage jumps.  Vacant lots or even parking areas can be mini‑wildlife corridors by merely planting trees, shrubs, and grasses along their back edges.  As more and more habitat is lost to urban development, these city trees and shrubs become more and more attractive to wildlife.

And finally, one more good reason to plant downtown trees; lower utility bills for your downtown merchants.  No, it's not only because of the shade of the leaves, it's more complicated than that.  When our first satellites carrying heat sensors scanned the country, they immediately detected hot spots in every town and city of any size.  If you have ever walked across a blacktop highway barefoot, you understand how asphalt, concrete, and other building materials hold heat.  The average downtown is sometimes 10 degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside.  When the satellite data was closely analyzed, certain areas within a city would stand out as cooler than other areas.  It became very clear that cities with parks and downtown trees were substantially cooler than a city without trees.  A downtown with good tree planting can have midsummer temperatures as much as 10 degrees cooler than a comparable city without trees.  Translate that to your electric bill and you can have as much as a $50.00 to $100.00 a month reduction. 

So the next time you look at your downtown, try to imagine a beautiful tree every 25 feet along every street.  What a difference it would make.  A difference not only for wildlife, but as a beautiful addition to a bare street and as a cooling agent for those hot Arkansas summers.

Richard can be contacted at richard@gibraltarenergy.com

What's a Woman Doing in My Restroom?

            ARKANSAS

                          BY

                Richard Mason

What’s a Woman Doing in My Restroom?

Actually, I thought at first I was in the wrong restroom, because there was a woman washing her hands at the lavatory. But then a man came out from one of the stalls and headed for the lavatories, and in seconds there were men and women standing there washing their hands while others entered the stalls. Yes, that was restroom wake-up for me. So here’s my take on the restroom controversy here in the USA.

Restroom use seems to be the question of the moment, and states such as North Carolina have taken it upon themselves to try and direct restroom traffic. Yes, that’s right, and as the squeeze of dollars keeps hitting, them they will probable cave in and open those restroom doors to transgender folks. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Let me back up and give you the whole story about having women in my restroom. My wife and I were on vacation heading for Dijon, France, and we landed in Geneva, Switzerland where we would catch a train to Dijon. We walked through Swiss immigration and customs---which took about two minutes and then into the main airport terminal. I had been needing to take a restroom break ever since we landed, so I began to check for restroom signs. Well, the Swiss have plenty of signage and clocks, and sure enough a series of arrows pointed toward the restrooms. I picked up the pace, looked back at my wife, and said, “I’m going to stop in the restroom before we get a taxi.” She nodded and I hurried on to the area where I could see the very obvious man and woman signage over a door. I stepped inside expecting to find a hallway to another entrance, which naturally would be to the men’s room and another to the women’s restroom. After about three steps into the room, I was sure I was in the women’s restroom because a women was washing her hands at one of the lavatories, and I turned to leave just as a man came out of one of the stalls. What? What? What? Flashed through my brain.

This is how the Swiss restroom area in the Geneva airport was set up: it was a fair sized room with about a half dozen wash basins on one side of the room and about the same number of stalls on the other side of the room. The stalls had doors, which you easily lock after you entered. It was that simple. After a few seconds I figure it out, stepped in one of the stalls, locked the door, and used the facility. As I finished my restroom break, the room filled with men, women, and children. Several planes had just landed, and it was a wait-in-line to use the restroom. Did anyone get upset? Did anyone worry about children being in the same restroom with men or women or who knows, transgender? No, not in the least, and it seemed to me the Swiss are showing us how to solve our restroom phobia. Simple, efficient Swiss ingenuity is what flashed through my mind, and I wondered why we didn’t copy something that would solve any restroom problems you could imagine, and save millions of dollars in doing duplication restrooms?  For gosh sakes, folks, after seeing what people are wearing to the mall going to the restroom together is nothing.

But my restroom experience didn’t stop with Geneva. The next day we headed to Dijon, and in various train stations, I ran into another restroom problem. The French, in most train and airport stations charge to use the restrooms. They are separate and the price changes if you want to do # 1 or # 2. There is an attendant on duty to mainly make change, and the restrooms are separate. That my friend is a step backward in restroom design. Seventy cents to use the bathroom, even if it’s just to do # 1? I know other countries do the same thing in airports, but that’s exactly the wrong way to handle the restroom problem.

After Dijon it was on to London, and after standing in a two hour to get through immigration (the Brits are frantic that thousands of refugees are going to flood into the country and they put everyone through the slow---“You’re not getting in this country  if you are from _______fill in the blank.) Well, the Brits have free restrooms for the most part, and the airport ones were about what you would find in the USA. However, in London, right off Trafalgar Square, I saw a circular kiosk and it had a stall like portal about every two feet where a man could stand on the sidewalk and get up close to the stall and urinate. No, I didn’t try it out, because I really don’t think I could have managed with hundreds of people passing.

Well, so much for the restroom problem. No, I don’t like the going on the sidewalk in London, or paying to pee in France, but the Swiss one restroom for all, seems a perfect fit for any county.