David,
It's really, really hard to focus on your intelligent contributions when we have to wade through so much vitriolic slagging of Mike to get there. We're all big boys. We can assess Mike's contributions and comment as we see fit. We don't need your vitriolic haranguing to tell us how we should deal with Mike. Stop wasting our time with this nonsense.
Bryan, I didn't tell you how to deal with Mike, I asked you why you don't call him out for his constant counterproductive behavior? And your response above begs this question. Just as you find my "slagging" Cirba a waste of your time, I similarly find Mike's endless misrepresentations, sarcasm, half-truths, tangents, and general unctuousness a waste of my time. If you want to have a conversation about how to improve the tone, then at least let's address both sides of the problem.
- If you were a member of a club, and one of the members played at a snails pace, and NEVER let anyone play through, would you say something?
- What if that member would repeatedly leave the hole he was on to go back and replay some already played hole over and over again in the hopes of attaining a result he was incapable of attaining? And if he made everyone else join him and/or refused to let them pass while he did this?
- What if that same member sat in the middle of about every fairway and insisted that everyone take detour after detour away from the actual hole, and toward holes he was just inventing as he went along, would you say something?
- What about if he repeatedly lied not only about his own score, but about everyone else's as well?
- What about if he repeatedly pronounced himself the club champion even though he was a double bogey golfer at best.
- What if did everything he could to stop or derail the real club championship from even taking place. What if he insisted that he control the event, deciding on the rules as he went, and assigning scores as he saw fit?
- What if had repeatedly spread malicious lies about other members?
Would you say anything? Would you go after anyone who did?
There is more ongoing here than me "slagging" Mike, and you know it.
The comments about scrubs and dwarfs is actually from a Travis article from 1915. He called them "dwarf pines and stunted oaks". So, I guess you're slagging Travis too. I'm not delusional and I'm not misrepresenting the facts. The fact is that that is what Travis said.
As to the "scrub oaks" and "dwarf pines, you are twisting my words beyond recognition. I wasn't "slagging" Travis, nor do I think that the other contemporaneous descriptions were disingenuous or delusional. Rather I assume they were accurate. I don't object to the descriptions because I am aware of what these terms mean, and I am aware that a thicket of such trees would render visibility almost impossible. My objection is with the way the way those descriptions have been twisted and misapplied here in a transparent effort to create the false impression that such trees would NOT have severely hindered visibility of the underlying land. That is what Mike has been doing here, and unfortunately and surprisingly, you have played along and repeatedly so. I assumed you were playing along with Mike because you "had not seen the photos in the books" and were therefore unaware that these were real trees of substantial size, and that they would have rendered visibility of the underlying features very difficult or nearly impossible. In other words, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Apparently, I was mistaken.
I don't understand why, if you understand the size and nature of such trees, you would continue to throw out the "scrub" and "dwarf" descriptors as if a thicket of such trees would not have obscured visibility?
You don't have a decent digital camera to get a better picture of the picture?
I don't think a photo will cut it without a tripod and proper lighting, and frankly I don't think it is worth the effort. Feel free and get the book yourself and photograph it to your hearts content, though.
Ironic that you guys expect me to jump through these hoops for you. Of course neither of you will say a damn thing if I do, then get skewered here and elsewhere for supposedly disrespecting Pine Valley by posting a photo from a published book.
Sure, it could be a sand road to remove the felled lumber. It could also be the RR. Neither of us know for sure which it is.
Yet when Mike repeatedly claims - without any doubt and in complete certainty - that it is clearly and definitely the RR, you remain silent, letting such ridiculous pronouncements clog up the thread for another dozen pages or so.
Likewise, Now that Mike had decided to ignore all the reports that they had to clear the land of trees and pretend the land had already been cleared, will you say a peep? Or will you silently let him take us on yet another tangent for a dozen or so pages?
Actually, I see a fair amount of deciduous in the pictures too, but then Deciduous Valley doesn't have much of a ring to it.
I do too. Perhaps "Oak Valley" was already cliche. Whether Pine or Oak, the photos show that in 1931-32, place was wall to wall trees, do they not?