My ex-town used to be beautifully green. There were trees everywhere. So many wonderful trees to provide shade and reduce the amount of eyesore that is the town. It was an official Illinois Tree City, whatever the hell that means, and the citizens were proud to live in the nice town. There was a huge movement towards the "Keep Taylorville Beautiful" campaign, and people planted trees and picked up trash and other such things.

It all started with the high school. The east side of the school was to be added on to. So, in order to add the new science wing, they had to scrap a couple trees. This led to the chopping down of many other trees in the surrounding school property. When I graduated from high school, it had gone from nice green place to a Lorax-like barren wasteland. There were no trees. Now, they're trying to make up for it with saplings that aren't living.

Then the general attitude towards trees in the town veered, and then dropped sharply. No one cared anymore about how the town looked. Hell, they were even cutting trees down in the park. I could feel the temperature rising year by year because of the lack of shade to prevent it from popping a greenhouse effect on the concrete of the roads.

Just a little exaggeration now to get my point across...
Then came the napalm. They wiped out the east side of town in less than two weeks. The heat in the summer swelled and there was nowhere to run. I left. I went to the city. Ironically, there are fewer trees here...

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