Thursday afternoon was beautiful in the Garden State. After buying tickets for the upcoming “Happy Together Tour” concert at The Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ, I drive over to the beach at Sandy Hook and took a relaxing walk along the shore.
Then, that same night, the monsoon-like rain fell, but was thankfully over by 9:00 AM on Friday and no trees were knocked down, I remember after Hurricane Sandy hit the East coast, it cost $1200.00 to have a tree cut down by tree specialists. I had to get another aged tree cut down last year and now it costs $2,000.00 to be rid of the d@mned thing.
I wonder if Mrs. Stoddard ever had Matthew Morgan or some local tree removal guy cut down some of those many trees surrounding Collinwood? Every time I saw that photograph of the Old House, I wondered why Barnabas didn’t have some of those trees that appeared to be dangerously close to the old dump, removed once and for all? Maybe Barnabas had “short arms,” and didn’t like having to reach down into his own pockets (or that jewelry box) and shell out the money/jewels to pay for the job?