“Dear Young Lad, 

​

I see fit to tell you that you are not a tree, and I will tell you how I came to that conclusion. 

 

Early this morning, I was idly curious and innocently wondered what a white pine newspaper would look like, and that filled me with vivid fantasies of those illustrious trees with their buxom, snowladen limbs. I employed the use of this infernal Google to seek out what I may so that I can recover from my visions, and I am given my latest and worst misfortune. There is a White Pine Press, a literary magazine containing no white pines and operating in... Buffalo? What is this? Buffalo? You cannot operate in a meat! I would've been driven to rage had it not been for my DOGGED personality. I would like you to guess the answer now to what title I see just beneath it. Guess, and be secure that you are either right or stupid. Answer me, what is this I find? Ho ho ho! A find so rare and precious, so fated and yet impossible, that to believe it exists is to accept the lie of God. It says "whitepinepresstc.com!"

 

Here, located in the very phalanges of Michigan, there existed a White Pine Press run by the minds of today! I will be honest in saying I nearly felt emotions at the thought of keeping the memory of the idea of the concept of the reality of the white pine alive. I congratulated you for even taking the name of the white pine as if it were your beautiful husband. I realize that trees do not share the genders we humans have, but I think we can agree that the needle exterior of the white pine is masculine, so long as we also agree that the warm, life-giving sap inside of it is also masculine. Most, if not all trees, are masculine, unless they are ugly, in which case they are trees. But I digress. 

 

I activated the website and was brought to the home page, and, good sir Mr. Pine, I was in shock. I was in shock at the disturbing lack of white pines displayed anywhere even remotely convenient for a man of later years and shorter stamina to find relatively quickly. I did not linger on the home page, but instead took to the others. First, the White Pine Pickle. There I might find pictures of our good locals celebrating the age old Christmas tradition. In the tradition, one would hide a pickle within a pine tree so that whoever found it on Christmas Day would be named the favorite child or else be written out of the will. Instead of seeing this Saturnalian holiday, what do I see? What do I see, Mr. Pine? 

 

lebron.

 

I see lebron. A proper noun that is uncapitalized because it is unworthy.

 

I will not hesitate to tell you the truth of the matter: I was fuming. I took then to the Particles Found page, and found nothing but measly environmental work! There is nothing environmental about white pines. I confess I wanted to hollow you then, Orphan Lad, so that I might don your flesh and become the new Mr. Pine. I would prove myself worthy of the name.

 

I continued my search, growing yet more desperate to finish what I had started and to seek respite from my visions.

 

I went to the Archives webpage for perhaps a tree: nothing!

 

I ran to Contact to see if I could ask for a tree: zilch!

 

I struggled to Pages and saw nothing but the vaporization of that rogue Joseph Biden!

 

I am so sad.

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I would like to say that I have not spent the past two hours composing this electronic letter to you. But I have. I have had to take many breaks to cry into the arms of my beloved sapling, Amber, and decry you for your emotional manipulation of my DOGGED personality. Amber is keen to support me and preserve my mental constitution, and he has offered an olive branch to you. He says that the only way for you to rectify this slight against leafkind is to create an article on the white pine tree. I cannot agree more, especially if you include many artistically complex, boudoir-esque pictures of white pine trees alongside interesting facts about these trees. It would be right, and it would be good. Please do get back to me on what your ultimate decision is so I can meet my despair with true mettle. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Samuel Lord”

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Dear Mister Lord,

 

You sound like some rich toff, don’t you? Why, a bloody dollop of lust in every spoonful of this letter, and methinks you didn’t have any decency at all to rattle it off like a swarm of rats shot out from the sewers. I can’t help you. I don’t think a doctor can bloody help you. 

 

Sincerely, Young Lad