Ok, I was supposed to post yesterday and I forgot. Besides, I don?t have a whole lot to say. Though I did notice that one of my fellow bloggeteers below made reference to the infamous 1986 Incident at Lake Forest, which is well on its way to being enshrined in urban legend. The truth, as far as I can make out, is that when Mr.T bought his estate, he had all the trees cut down because of his allergies. And as someone who was up ALL NIGHT two nights ago with sneezing, watering eyes, and asthma, I sure as shit would?ve chopped down the offending tree that has done this to me if I had a chainsaw handy. The T-man said, in a 1993 interview with the Onion A/V Club:

?Back in 1986, I bought a mansion in Lake Forest, Illinois, and then I cut down my trees and the neighbors got mad. How dare my neighbors get mad about my property? But the issue wasn?t the trees, as if they don?t cut down trees; the issue was that I was the only black man moving to a town of about 15,000 people. Stuffy people. Some of them were rich, some of them barely scraping. Actually, the really rich people didn?t even say nothing. The people that got little houses, their house ain?t bigger than my garage. So I?m sort of the black version of the Beverly Hillbillies. My driveway?s about a block and a half long, most unusual for a black man to have.?

He did not, as some claim, chop the trees down to ?piss off the white man.? He chopped them down so he?d stop sneezing, and it was only the middle-class, striving white man who got pissed off. The very rich don?t feel threatened by other people?s tree-chopping habits. The anxious middle class do. If I had the time and energy, this could actually be a complex and compelling discission about race and class and entitlement over the environment. But I?m sneezing too hard. Anyone want to tak eit up, feel free?