THE MORETON BAY FIG . . .
Its size was so big
It taught me there are those
Who don't care a fig.
© Jim Low - "Sixty Long Years"
listen:
I still remember the destruction of a giant sixty year old Moreton Bay Fig Tree which was bulldozed to the ground. I have a photograph I took of the tree which stood at the top of our street. It 
was destroyed in 1965, the year I started university, being removed to make way for the new expressway. The local newspaper wrote about the tree's demise, entitling their article, "The Death of a Monarch". Sadly, this monarch would have no successor.
The day the tree was killed it rained very heavily. I guess that was appropriate - nature's own way of mourning a significant loss. And it was a sad occasion. The tree's destruction seemed to symbolise for me the realisation that my youth was now over. The tree was the last of many things to go, making way for the expressway.
