Armstrong-Kelly Park isn’t the easiest place to find. The GPS couldn’t find it even when I entered it’s actual street address into it. I gave up on it the first time I tried to go there, but my sister directed me to it yesterday. We hoped for a nice picture of the holly tree that is planted there in honor of my brother-in-law, but we’ll come back in the spring to try that again.
My brother-in-law wasn’t a big man. He was small, actually. He was about my height and I out-weighed him all the years I knew him. He.was quiet. Worked all day and came home, had a beer and watched TV. There was no inkling of what a big man he actually was until he died. That’s when the crew from Bartlett Tree Experts took over the planning of his funeral, and the stories they told of his expertise at his job astounded all of us I think. They said that there was probably not a street on Cape Cod that hadn’t benefitted from his hard work. The story I remember best was about a homeowner who wanted a gigantic boulder moved from one side of his lawn to another. A Bartlett truck was on the scene, and the crew of workers were standing there trying to decide how they were going to accomplish this task when Neil pulled up. He got his winches and pulleys out of his truck and got to work. He had the boulder moved in no time flat, loaded up his tools and left the rest of the crew standing there scratching their heads. No, he wasn’t a big man, but he had a big impact on his little piece of the world.
This holly tree was planted to honor Neil for his 50 years of hard work for Barlett. He trained a lot of arborists in his day also, so his influence is still sending ripples out into nature. Such a quiet little man, who left a legacy behind him.
A Snowbird's Life Through the Lens 