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CLOUDY Temp: 45 °F Wind: CLM at 0 mph Wednesday, February 19, 2003 SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA HomeLife Magazine W3 Magazine Jobs @ Mail Tribune Tempo A & E Oregon CarZone Wellness Connection Real Estate Newspaper in Education Prime Times Outdoor Journal Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find Everything E SOUTHERN OREGON Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar ABOUT US FAQ What's New Advertise Home Delivery Classified Ad Contact Us Media Kit Email Story to a Friend January 20, 2003 These little ornaments and dozens of others have been saved from the wood chipper by alert Ashland parks workers. Mail Tribune / Jim Craven For the past four years, the folks at Ashland Parks and Recreation have saved orphaned ornaments from the wood chipper By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune ASHLAND — A soggy cardboard image of Kriss Kringle stuffing a blue-shirted boy into a Christmas bag is dated 1977, meaning it likely has adorned some family’s tannenbaum for the past 25 Christmases. It should be put away in a box with the rest of the ornaments, but this one instead dangles from a leafless bush in the misty wind outside a city maintenance shop near Hunter Park. Oh, well. At least it missed its date with the tree chipper. This ornament is one of more than a dozen decorations that Ashland parks workers plucked from discarded Christmas trees Jan. 11 in what amounts to the city’s last tradition of the holiday season — saving forgotten ornaments from the wood chipper. "As we put the trees through the chipper, we see these ornaments still stuck to the branches," says Superintendent Steve Gies of the Ashland Parks and Recreation Department. "If we have time to grab it safely, we do." A little nutcracker and a small, golden glass bulb all escaped the blades of the city’s 40-horsepower, turbo-diesel Morbark chipper. A yellow parrot with one blue wing cheated chipper-death, along with a long glass icicle, a mouse holding a holiday strawberry and a green sled stamped "Hallmark 2002." The rescued ornaments are then hung each year from the same hibernating bush overlooking the city’s bike path and the railroad tracks behind Hunter Park. "We don’t catch them all," says Stu Wilkie, the department’s head mechanic who works annually on the chipping crew. "Usually, they’re cookies or paper ornaments, but this year we put some pretty nice ones through the chipper. "And once they go, they’re gone." Parks crews began hanging the orphaned ornaments on the bush, or a nearby catalpa tree, four years ago and the tradition just stuck, Wilkie says. The ornaments are off the nearly 2,000 trees collected by the Boy Scouts of America, with the chips eventually serving as mulch in parks across Ashland. A $10 bill and a check — presumably affixed to the trees as donations to the Scouts — ran through the chipper this year. Fast fingers spared two identical tin stars, although both ended up mangled like broken propellers. A singing angel formed from glued pasta survived a violent death, only to grow waterlogged before succumbing to exposure and falling off the bush. Wilkie remembers snatching the Kriss Kringle ornament from a Douglas fir just before the tree became photinia food. "It just seems like a shame that people forgot to take some of these ornaments off," Wilkie says. "There ought to be some sentimental value to them." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Printer Friendly Version Email Story to a Friend Subscribe Archive: Click to Search Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright 1997-2002 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy webmaster feedback A D V E R T I S E R S