At 10:30 AM -0500 3/1/97, ironmger@n... wrote:

>After getting them back to the shop, I realized that they were chesnut!
>What a blast it was working with this now extinct wood.

Ahh, Pete, thanks you just sent a flood of memories (and emotions) though
the thing I call a brain.

I _KNOW_ of _ONE_ Chestnut still standing and thriving.
It is in a town called Riverside, RI. (that is near the ocean, Jeff)
the tree is doing quite well, thankyouvewrymuch.
the treee is examined ever year by some tree-hugger group,
I want to say it is the National Audobon Society, but that is probly
wrong......

>skip the rest of the message if you wish, I'm gonna wax some poetic now>

It is in the back yard of Mr. George Lenninton Bandel's home.

(the greatest man that I ever had the pleasure of meeting, I hope to one
day be half the human being he was, (no shit!>) some of you may have heard
me speak of him before.

Now Mr Bandel was my Shop teacher as well as a British and American Lit
teacher back when I was in Boarding(Prep) School in Barrington, RI. he had
a HUGE impact on my life.
He is more responsible for making me the person I am today than anyone else
(save the fact that may parents concieved me, ya know....)
I spent may a fine Sun afternoon at his house listening to classical music
"shooting the shit"and getting the crud kicked out of me in cribbage.

Well, when he moved to RI from Palenville NY (that's in the Cattskill
Mtn's, Jeff)
he was looking at varios houses, when he looked at this house he(he says)
he hated it!
but when he looked a tthe back yard he saw a standing, thriving Chestnut
three and decided he MUST but this house to preserve that tree! (so the
story goes).

Anyway, back in 1984, I was looking at some squirrels up in the tree
(actully sighting one up in my sling-shot) I noticed a chestunt on a
branch. I aked "B" (that's what we all called him) about it, he looked at
it and walked into the house and called that tree hugger gropup.
the next day they were there taking picture of the pod, etc. a few months
later they sent someone out there to "harvest" that nut.

I came to find out that that they wanted it to do some genetic testing on
it to find out why this tree was immune to the disease that killed all the
others and to try to propogate and clone it! I dunno if hey were sucessfull
or not.

Okay lots of line to say:  they IS an American-Chestnut Tree alive in the US.
and by now, probly a whole farm of them growing in irraditead hydoponic
chemical soup under the careful guard of agents Scully and Moulder (we can
only hope!)

> Planed like poplar, had a consistency of oak and was about as dense as
>maple.

I truly envy you!

L8r,
John