My neighbor got a pair of her tall pine trees cut down on Thursday. I broke out my digital video camera to record the process for the second tree. It was fascinating to watch them work, and even more fascinating to watch it again on video.
I sped up the video to 5 times the normal speed to show how the tree guy went about dismantling this pine.
It’s a lonely calling. “Washington is full of Carnegie and Brookings Institutes with people who can tell you every option we have in Egypt or Pakistan,” laments Herr, who has a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University. “Try and find someone who does that on the postal service. There aren’t many.”
Yet Herr finds the USPS fascinating: ubiquitous, relied on, and headed off a cliff. Its trucks are everywhere; few give it a second thought. “It’s one of those things that the public just takes for granted,” he says.”The mailman shows up, drops off the mail, and that’s it.”
