Time to Gather Round the Tree
Nestled like an ornament in the tree that has been his home for nearly two months, John Quigley held to a family tradition and opened a single Christmas present. It was a much-welcome gift from the tree sitter’s friends: a super-bright headlamp along with a book about naturalist John Muir.
“The idea was that the headlamp would help me read the book,” Quigley said Wednesday by walkie-talkie as he passed the holiday in the old oak near Santa Clarita. He climbed up Nov. 1 to protest the planned removal of the tree to make way for a wider road leading to a new subdivision.
On Christmas Day, the towering oak was an attraction like so many Candy Cane Lanes, where residents go all out to decorate their homes for the season. As cars slowly rolled by on Pico Canyon Road, children pressed their noses against the windows to see the 42-year-old man who lives in a tree. Nearby, boys tried out new remote-control cars on the shoulder of the road.
The small encampment that has developed at the base of the tree called “Old Glory” was decorated with colorful balls, tinsel and lights. Stockings were hung with care on the chain-link fence surrounding the tree.
Some people dropped off cookies and casseroles, and employees of a salon offered to give Quigley a haircut. One man brought several pots of poinsettias.
There was still some baked ziti left over from a Christmas Eve dinner. Quigley’s supporters had prepared the meal, which included tamales, and ate it atop a patch of straw outside the fence. Organizer Tom Barron said the supporters drank hot chocolate and took part in a “corny” sing-a-long. Neighbors brought their relatives from out of town to see the tree that has made news worldwide.
“It felt like family,” Barron said.
The tree sitter from Pacific Palisades spent Christmas as he spent Thanksgiving and pretty much all the other 53 days since he moved into the oak: He took calls from reporters and shouted thanks to sympathizers. A package from his mother waited for him on the ground.
Quigley said he would like to get to Washington, D.C., to see his father, who is ill, and then return to his teaching job with the Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education.
“I’m definitely ready” to come down, he said. “I’ve been up here a long time.”
He and fellow protesters had expected to have a plan to preserve the tree by Christmas, but this week Los Angeles County engineers rejected alternative designs for the road, saying they were unsafe.
The building permit granted to developer John Laing Homes calls for removal of the oak. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich has advocated transplanting the 400-year-old tree to a nearby park, but environmentalists fear it would not survive such a move.
When Quigley climbs down, Jeff Johnson, a carpenter and mountaineer from Santa Clarita, is ready to take his place in the jury-rigged aerie of boards, buckets and American flags. The protest’s organizers would not say when Johnson would relieve Quigley.
Quigley said he plans to spend New Year’s Eve in the tree and continue to protest the plan to uproot it after he leaves its branches.
