The Lumber Barron's Son

My name is Walter Eddington, live in Maine with my wife and son, own a growing timber company way up north with vast tracts of trees. My son’s name is Bruce, and one day at age fourteen he came home to say that cutting trees was an ‘evil’ thing, what in the hell are these schools teaching? I tried to explain how it all works, how we must balance needs of the earth, how we rotate where we harvest, and then replant seedlings in mass. That we were really big tree farmers, that was how me made a dollar, made no sense to cut it all down, no future profit in barren grounds. Told him of our thirty years cycle how when trees grew that land was wild, that managing lots kept out condos, thought he’d think different if he did know. But it’s black and white at age fourteen, nothing but an emotional scene, he held to the nonsense he was taught, but his obstinance gave me a though. The next day, while he was at school, I did something some would think cruel, went to his room, a point to prove, all wood and paper I them removed. All his posters and his bed-frame, pencils and books, boxed that contained, his night stand and desk, and paper, when Bruce came home he was lost for words. I smiled and said,”It’s as you like, nothing made from a tree inside, in truth, son, you should be thanking me for saving you from hypocrisy.” Now maybe I was a bit extreme, but it can be hard reaching a teen, needless to say, after all that he never again gave my job flack. Consequences stirred his growing mind, he would think things through next time, reason would balance out the young fool, if it doesn’t, then time to home-school.