Honking tree anniversary passes by fading memories

Mike Creger, Lake County News Chronicle
Published: May 2, 2010 12:00:00 AM CDT

Within days, Erin Carlson created an online Facebook page and organized a drive-by parade. She touted memorial T-shirts and took photos. Carlson was the epitome of the reaction to the felling of the honking tree April 30, 2009. A year after the vandalism, the Two Harbors resident is as full of lament as then but in a new vein.

"Sadly, I think the falling of the honking tree has for the most part been forgotten by many people," she said.

Lives get busy. People move on. Carlson once had big plans for a one-year anniversary memorial on her Facebook page but never got it organized. She, too, has "kind of fallen out of the loop," she admits.

Before all of the memorial ideas, there had always been a certain pull toward artistic renditions of the tree. In 2003, Andy Saur and his wife, Angel Sarkela, created an art work depicting the honking tree using their unique coffee bean water color technique. "It is bittersweet when looking at the painting," Saur said. He sold the original work to fellow Two Harbors native Andy Sandvik.

Saur said the honking tree piece was very popular whenever the Duluth artists showed it. "It was a source for inspiration for us and now, after being felled, it is just a memory," Saur said. "We hope that with this art, the legacy of the honking tree will live on."

Here is a link to the Honking Tree.

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