What was Ford thinking?

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Like Jim K mentioned, there is a USDA program to do just that. We did it for years as a family adventure in one of the national forests. A few rules about how big the trees can be, and a $5 permit if I remember correctly. Pretty much impossible to find a forest tree that looks like a Christmas tree, but by taking some of the over thick little ones out, it helps the big ones, and in a tiny way, decreases fire risk. One year we even found a bull elk skeleton, rangers let us keep the skull, he hangs in my woodshop, kids named him Carlos.

I don't see anything wrong with the commercial I guess. Now that a one they did several years ago with the guy pounding wood fenceposts in with a sledgehammer, that one infuriates me.

[Bob Glenn]

Another bad commercial years ago was a Coke commercial that depicted kids climbing up under a railroad trestle waiting for the train to come by. We wrote a letter to CocaCola in Atlanta about the bad example it made on impressionalbe kids and they took the ad down.

[Bill Dufour]

This may have some relation to the fact that Ford no longer makes police cars and will stop making cars next year. I believe thy will still assemble the Mustang, for some time, in the US from made in China parts.
So why worry about getting caught by police on foot?
Bill D.

[Tom M King]

I didn't see the commercial, but we have always cut a Christmas tree from our own land.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

They were selling a throw back to tradition to make folks feel family warm and cozy. If they showed a grandma pulling cookies out of an old wood fired kitchen range, you or somebody would complain about the wood smoke emissions not being regulated and the hot exterior surfaces not complying with federal consumer standards, and how little ones should never be in the same area code as such things. And if they showed kids on a sled, some body would want safety belts and brakes and helmets. If they showed kids skating on a pond, somebody would want a government certification about the thickness and crush strength of the ice. I can remember fondly the annual trip to the country to a relatives's woods to pick ad cut some straggly looking tree. (My father now owns that woods) It was only 15 years ago, that I hitched a trailer to the 8n and the whole family rode out to the end of the farm and cut a tree from the ones I planted a decade earlier. What's next, banning Robert Frost poems, because the boys did not swing on their own birches. Or because he was trespassing when he stopped by the woods on a snowy evening. You Sir have been reading too much Joyce Kilmer.

[Ole Anderson]

The world would be a better place if each family took the time to get a permit and go into the woods and chop down a Christmas tree.

[Art Mann]

It is easy enough to tell the people who were raised in an urban or suburban environment from those who were raised in the country.

[Tom M King]

We had some real adventures going to get Christmas trees. My best friend always came over because most of his family land was open pastures. Around where I grew up, everyone used, and us old-timers still use Red Cedars, because that's the only type of tree growing here naturally that looks like a Christmas tree.

One year when we were probably 13, and 14, we drove a farm truck back in the woods to find a couple of trees. The truck we were sent on was a 1949 International one ton, with a short flat bed. It didn't take us long to find a couple of trees that year, and quickly had them loaded up. In backing the truck back into the woods to turn it around, on the narrow logging path, I put the rear end right on top of a stump, and both sets of rear wheels would only spin. We walked the mile, or so back home, and went back with a tractor to pull the truck off the stump.

The next year, the two of us went to do the same thing. This was an unusually cold day, and the ground was hard frozen. It took us several hours to find a couple of nice trees, and drug them back to the truck. By then, the day had warmed up, and so had the ground. The International, that we had left sitting on top of the ground, was now sunk up to the rear axle.

This was a place farther from home, and not wanting to walk all the way back home to get a tractor again, we knew of a family, with a bunch of strong boys, that lived maybe a quarter mile through the woods. We went to their house, and they came back with us. We cut a couple of Pine poles, and lifted one back corner of the truck at the time, putting a pole between the dual wheels on that side. Then repeated on the other side. We didn't slow down as we sped away, and all just waved to each other as we headed back out, slinging large quantities of mud in the process.

[Jerome Stanek]

My wife and kids loved going to a tree farm and cutting our own tree. there are a lot of them around me

[Jim Koepke]

During some lean years one of our friends used tree branches for their Christmas festivities for a few years.

When we were experiencing a few thin years we did the same. We have lots of trees growing. Most of them are over 30' tall.

jtk

[Peter Christensen]

Ages ago a couple young guys where I worked wanted a tree for the apartment they shared. They went to the tree lot and thought the $20-$25 was too much for a tree. They went to the bar and while there hatched the plan to go cut one down. Off they went to hunt for a tree and found a really nice one. The people in the house heard them chopping down the tree and called the RCMP. The owners didn't like them cutting down the tree in their front yard (subdivision) so it cost the guys a couple hundred bucks to buy a replacement for the tree and stay out of jail. They didn't get to take the tree back to the apartment. No Fords were hurt in the adventure.

[Yonak Hawkins]

...hot exterior surfaces not complying with federal consumer standards, and how little ones should never be in the same area code as such things. And if they showed kids on a sled, some body would want safety belts and brakes and helmets. If they showed kids skating on a pond, somebody would want a government certification about the thickness and crush strength of the ice....

Perry, not to parse your statement but, while I agree with it, it should be noted that ecological concerns are not the same as safety concerns. Safety, in my opinion, is personal responsibility. There should be no need, for instance, for a notice on a set of steak knives, "Caution, sharp objects. These knives are not toys." Any responsible adult should know this and, if they don't, they should not be having children. Ecology, on the other hand, is doing what's right for future generations and should be a widespread, not personal, concern and objective.

[Chuck Wintle]

The world would be a better place if each family took the time to get a permit and go into the woods and chop down a Christmas tree.

i would have to disagree because 2 many weekend warriors could end up chopping off a foot trying to use an axe. Better to buy at the local christmas tree place.

[Bill Dufour]

Family story is when My dad's sister had two little girls at home with no extra money Santa came and delivered the tree on Christmas eve after everyone was asleep. Tree lots are cheap after they shut down for the season.
Bill D

[Flamone LaChaud]

When I was in grad school, I went and got a small tree that was supposed to be taken out and planted. I just put it in a large planter, and used it for the next 7 Christmases . . . until it got too big to move from outside to inside. Gave up and finally planted it in the ground . . . stinking thing died the next year.

Ho Ho Ho