> It's the strangest thing. The only thing I can possibly liken it to -- and I'm not sure even this is appropriate -- is the disappearance of the One Tree from One Tree Hill in Auckland, New Zealand. The Old Man is as important to New Hampshire as the eagle is to the United States at large.

The first thing I thought when I heard the Old Man had fallen down was "Oh, no! Sam and Leen and Dave and all their relatives will feel the way everybody felt when the tree on One Tree Hill came down." That happened a couple of years ago now, and it *still* is horribly jarring to see One Tree Hill on the skyline and realise again that the tree is gone. And the tree-and-obelisk silhouette of One Tree Hill wasn't even the official city or region symbol; I think a lot of people only started to realise it HAD been a symbol after it wasn't there anymore.

I was interested to see that some New Hampshire officials have dealt with the sudden disappearance of a symbol in exactly the same way Aucklanders did at first -- by saying it should be replaced. The newspapers were full of ideas and plans for replacing the One Tree Hill tree for a considerable time afterwards. Everything from planting a new tree, to planting a dozen new trees and then ignoring them and letting nature decide which one would become "the one", to putting up a monument in remembrance of the tree, and even to (I kid you not) casting the original tree in bronze and PUTTING IT BACK.

Years down the track, the summit is still bare of tree and I suspect that is the way it will remain. Since we can't ever have the same tree back, I prefer it that way. I think this is even more likely to be the case with the Old Man, once people get over the initial reaction; some other tree wouldn't have been THE tree, for Aucklanders, and a man-made Old Man would be even more stupid. As somethingawful.com so eloquently put it, "We don't need another man-made head on a mountain. That market was cornered the minute Mt. Rushmore was finished."