Johnny Pro

CutHighnLetFly said:
"Society has so many people tuned into going about their day- working for a huge house in which you think you need more fake flowers-tons of clothing- many objects that arn't real to dull your senses of what is real and have you go about your day thinking you are free in the USA! hahah A place where your mind is so brain washed you over consume out of greed and forget about what life is all about! USA! USA! USA! hahaha yea right.. freedom!!! haha Not at all unless you recognize what freedom really is. Freedom of the mind. USA of Freedom Quite the opposite actually for most. People Go to work, Make money, Go home, Sleep, Eat, Shit, Do it again,- Programed to build- Thats freedom alright. Fake food stuffed in our faces to cause the number one death rate which is eating fake foods. Just because you are skinny, doesn't mean you are safe to eat shit, Consume source full foods and your mind and body becomes clearer right? Soo why are you still falling for Mcdonalds for lunch? Is it because the real life advertisement driving down the street and seeing the signs flash before your eyes? Or is it because of the ingredients that are in it! Sugar just as addicting as Cocaine! You know when you know your addicted? When you DONT think your addicted haha."

I gotta say JP, i hae a problem with this statement. Respectfully of course.
But i consider myself to be an average joe for the most part. i guess you could say i "go to work, make money, sleep, eat,..." But i am very happy and proud of my life and what i do. i feel i make my own choices in life. if i want Mcdonalds or nice clothes, that is a choice. to hear someone said it is because i am brainwashed by big brother or satan or the government or something else is really borderline offensive. it is the same to me as the old Catholic lady who says i will go to hell if im not at church every sunday. or the guy who tells me i NEED to vote, cause if i dont im not a true american. extremist views.

i dont eat / wear / do what society has controlled me to do. i do feel free. i can choose to pick things from the mass of options in life (whether it be food choices, clothing, housing), or i can choose to feel that society is brain washing people. or i can choose to think God favors America and is on our side at war. or i could choose to do what i think will make me cool. Your free to feel the way you do, and so am I. this isnt a place where women have no choice but to cover their skin or something wild like that. We are as Free as we perceive to be. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is freedom. We can choose to cage ourselves, or make it "me vs. society."

Your Perception is your Reality
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Good post,, starting to feel like a cult was forming,,,
 
Mark Chisholm said:
\

These are deep thoughts and deep debates. I am glad that everyone is thinking so deep about such things. I for one can appreciate both sides of a debate. I like a lot of your messages and the side that they come from. I also can relate with cuthighnletfly. I too lived for many years very far below my means. Small house, frugal life and very conservative. At different times in your life you gravitate towards different goals and different ways to live your life. I came to the realization that I love what I do and will do it for as long as I can no matter what else life throws at me.

That is when I took a long look at the life I was providing my family. I was saving for the future. After years of financial responsibility I began to question why? I ahve a financial plan with goals for my family's future, but what was I missing? I didn't have balance exactly. What I was missing was the quality of life for NOW. That's when I decide to move to a better house with more space, more options and more trees! Yes I spend more now and it's a change, but the payoff is I really feel that we have the best of both worlds. We still live the same style we did in the earlier years and appreciate everything we have, but now we have more options and more enjoyment. We have a better quality of life and enhance others lives as well! That's the nice feeling. Enhancing others lives.

I don't agree with your views of our country and the people that comprise it, but I don't feel the need to debate that with you. I would agree that some people are greedy, and some are inconsiderate. However, there are plenty of people with good hearts and good intentions. And I for one am proud to be an American and love the life that I feel blessed to live.

We are obviously in different stages of our lives, you and I, and have come from different backgrounds and experiences, but I can appreciate your point of view and respect it. And that's a great thing. We have many things in common, yet we still have differences of opinion. Respect for one another is important. Patience and understanding.

If everyone was the same as one another the world would be a whole lot less interesting!
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Good post,,
Jeff
 
Stihlmadd said:
where to start?
reading Steves post brought up emotions and memories so I started thinking about my strong feelings about trees and tree work.
your enthusiasm and passion got me to evaluating the last ten years.
I started this job because I was out of work and had a mortgage to pay on land I had purchased in the adelaide hills,
20 acres with a winter creek and two dams on a dead end road one of the last properties. ( see photos on google plus)
more important to me was the magnificent River red gums some two to three hundred years old and so much space to plant many other trees that could in their maturity be as big as they wanted.
this was before I became an arborist.

I was offered a job at a place by my best friend where he worked for a landscaper and arborist - Mondy.
The first rule at Lamonds was there are no tears at Lamonds.
the second rule was refer to the first rule
the third rule was must drink beer - I was granted a exemption based on medical grounds.

Mondys motto was " it is better to prune a tree three times than to cut it down once"
under the team mond crew I spent the first year on the ground learning the ropes quite literally , how to correctly prune and use a chainsaw what knots to tie , I sat in the middle seat of the truck going from job to job tying knots and getting checked/corrected.

I had come from a factory job at 30 having just done 3 1/2 years of night shift following of 4 years of afternoon shift at a printing firm who had refused to apprentice me so I became the first person in the state to apprentice themselves.
I worked from three in the afternoon to 12 or 1am in the morning then either stayed back or went home and did my studies
got up at 6am and drove to class at seven till 1 in the afternoon then drove to work and started at three - repeat .......
I finished 6 weeks ahead of every other apprentice that year - I am dyslexic.
at work I was known as the overtime king.

So at 30 out of shape and known as the grey ghost for how white I was I started doing tree work
I would go around to my fellow workers homes on weekends so I could get practice in setting climbing lines and tying prussic , footlocking friction control flipping the pole strap with out removing your own teeth,
because I wanted to climb. the years pass.

Later I am a qualified Arborist after another stint back at trade school on saturdays - every saturday for the next two years after climbing all week and yes you guessed it more homework.
now I am a contract climber and the tree protection laws change - they are relaxed and the big wonderful trees that used to be protected are now no longer safe and my wonderful friends I stood before all the state and proclaimed the doom about to befall this beautiful city of mine and none listened.
and so it began and as the tears roll down my cheeks I tell you my brothers and sisters of the terrible things we did .............
what once was my love was swept away in the blur of the chain and the roar of the chipper,
I told them it would be open season out there and for three long years so it was.
and my heart darkened my hatred for these people grew, my pleas fell on deaf ears and my hatred turned to anger. and the trees paid for my anger for my hatred of these people who did not appreciate what they were the custodians of and would not listen and my anger led to the dark side.

The pendulum had swung too far and now the flood gates were open there was no stopping the slaughter that unfurled its terrible wings and so the trees they paid.
I hardened my heart and sharpened my saw and closed my eyes and so became Death,
my new name was maddog and I liked it.
I called myself stihlmadd
I consoled myself with thoughts about the trees I was protecting and the seedling now that I would plant to address the inbalance, the horror I had participated in.

The time past and with it the numbers thinned my work changed and I was allowed to start pruning again.
I went back to the trees I had known who had weathered the storm and to the people who loved their trees ,
trees I had climbed before and remembered fondly who were still undergoing long term pruning programs I had participated in years ago and were now further along , some customers would ring up my employers and tell them about how happy they were with the tree a year later and could they please let me know, they would send christmas cards and tell their friends about my work.
I finished a program we had started ten long years ago and seven prunes later the tree was where we had discussed it to be with the customer how with the wisdom had spent the time and money instead of just cutting it down.

And I had discovered youtube - first just about showing my killing but it soon changed I was able to learn better climbing skills off other arborists a talent pool previously unavailable to me.
so with a change of customers and a new desire to climb my heart softened again and I remembered why I loved this job so much why I used to go on rec climbs on the weekends and my passion for the trees was more than just the beauty to be found in their destruction.

I now here I find myself explaining partly through guilt and partly through shame what has befallen me,
your honest enthusiasm whether for climbing or life and

really made me take stock, so there it is young Johnny no malice no games and as reasonably short as I can make it.

please watch my video 'sugur'
Ben.
here is the link to my youtube channel.
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I really enjoyed and appreciated this read Stihl.
 
I'm in agreement with AW4130, Stihlmadd. After reading it through a second time, I've decided that I think of it as really powerful poetry.

I'm no English major, so I don't know enough to be certain of things; as usual it is a research project. I don't generally go looking for poetry, so I lack the background. The phrase I've heard before, that comes to my mind, is "prose poetry".

Your writing in this instance was so powerful that it makes me want to seek out more of it. Just really great stuff.

Tim
 
I am not sure what to say, I have shown a local tree worker who came up through the ranks at the same time I did and we have worked at companies together on and off over the years.
He believes there are many of us in this city with a unspoken collective burden of shame/embaresment at what occurred.

At first released from the shackles that had restrained our actions for so many years we acted like children let loose in the candy store. those Bad trees that had enjoyed a blanket protection and were overdue for removal we felt no qualms in dispatching if anything relished the chance to "even the score"
but then the good trees were disappearing along with the bad, lost amongst all the fury going on but by then it was too late and a juggernaut was rolling around with so much momentum that it had to run it's course before coming to a stop.

I haven't cried in a long time but openly wept as I finally allowed myself to remember , the arguments with the customers and the disgust within at some of the removals to perfectly healthy trees that blocked the view or dropped leaves in the pool.
we had a reputation as the city with such a excellent tree canopy and then went about destroying that which we loved.

and now with the economy finally slowing to a crawl I find myself about to start working for a company that wants my skills to do LARGE removals and I am left with little choice but to don the mask again and close my eyes to what I am about to do.
my heart feels heavy because of the joy I find in the beauty of destruction, that darker side is eager for it, lusts after the mayhem where I love to be in the centre of the whirlwind all a blur of motion time falls away and bam its showtime.
I so do love trees and this dichotomy of the purist arb work versus madddog the slayer confuses and intoxicates the senses.
thats about it.
Ben.
 
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Ben, I feel your pain. Commercial fishing most of the last 15 yrs. On a double rigger, shrimping as I type this. Sometimes I hate that I love it. From the beginning I've felt guilty about all the taking of life so people can have a fancy dinner without getting dirty. I'm happy on a fishing boat though. Tried sailing, did a tall ship for a few weeks from Genoa to Varna, not enough action. That's what I like. It's addicting. Same thing I get doing trees, actually more because it's still fresh. I've thought about my livelihood and its nature of ending lives many times. It makes me feel rather conflicted. As we say out here "is what it is" I guess
 
Stihlmadd said:
I am not sure what to say, I have shown a local tree worker who came up through the ranks at the same time I did and we have worked at companies together on and off over the years.
He believes there are many of us in this city with a unspoken collective burden of shame/embaresment at what occurred.

At first released from the shackles that had restrained our actions for so many years we acted like children let loose in the candy store. those Bad trees that had enjoyed a blanket protection and were overdue for removal we felt no qualms in dispatching if anything relished the chance to "even the score"
but then the good trees were disappearing along with the bad, lost amongst all the fury going on but by then it was too late and a juggernaut was rolling around with so much momentum that it had to run it's course before coming to a stop.

I haven't cried in a long time but openly wept as I finally allowed myself to remember , the arguments with the customers and the disgust within at some of the removals to perfectly healthy trees that blocked the view or dropped leaves in the pool.
we had a reputation as the city with such a excellent tree canopy and then went about destroying that which we loved.

and now with the economy finally slowing to a crawl I find myself about to start working for a company that wants my skills to do LARGE removals and I am left with little choice but to don the mask again and close my eyes to what I am about to do.
my heart feels heavy because of the joy I find in the beauty of destruction, that darker side is eager for it, lusts after the mayhem where I love to be in the centre of the whirlwind all a blur of motion time falls away and bam its showtime.
I so do love trees and this dichotomy of the purist arb work versus madddog the slayer confuses and intoxicates the senses.
thats about it.
Ben.
Click to expand...

It's like you just can't stop writing great poetry.

Tim
 
I haven't cried in a long time but openly wept as I finally allowed myself to remember , the arguments with the customers and the disgust within at some of the removals to perfectly healthy trees that blocked the view or dropped leaves in the pool.
we had a reputation as the city with such a excellent tree canopy and then went about destroying that which we loved..
Click to expand...

I want to cry, just thinking of what a good cry feels like. So niice.

By the way, great story stihlmadd. I enjoyed it as well.
 
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Ben,
Good stuff man. Totally understand where you're coming from. I do have one point to make though: once doomsday arrives, you got to roll with it and do the job. Don't let inner conflict have its way while you're aloft doing dangerous work. You need your undivided attention up there. :)
 
Be thankful for work. I've only worked one day this week. Just found out at 825 in the morning they don't need me today. Just a little frustrating. Considering the contract climber deal but afraid I'll get all the shit trees to climb. Not interested in becoming a dead and hazardous tree specialist.
 
Beautiful day in the Midwest and I'm wishing health and happiness to Johnny Pro and his family.

Hope things are well.

Mark
 

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Yeah Buddy!

Johnny Pro!
Where did You go?
Be a bro, and show us another video!
Sincerely,
Flex Abednego

p.s. one day it would be a pleasure to go on an adventure with you if you're available. Been wanting to see Mongolia for the past 5 yrs
 
A friend i made traveling started doing this. She is an amazing person and has more love in her than maybe anyone I've ever met. Her name is Athena. She put up some slideshows on youtube that brought tears to my eyes whenI watched them. Her organization is called Love Thy Neighbor India check it out maybe it would be something you would dig
http://www.lovethyneighborinternational.org/#!about/cbgz
 
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