A tree falls. I am there. I hear the noise.

As is often the case these days, I was lost in thoughts when walking by the river.  Sometimes the mind wanders across the world.  Sometimes it is focused on my classes.

Or, yes, about my own life and problems and unhappiness, which always seems to be in plenty.

The amazing thing is that by the time I return home, I have simply no idea what those thoughts were. It is like waking up after a good sleep, knowing that I had some great dreams but being unable to recall even a small piece of what was once vivid in my mind.

A sudden cracking noise of a tree falling somewhere separated me from my thoughts.  I looked around.  No fallen tree.  Two couples walking pushing strollers is all I saw.  They were also looking around.

A new variation of that old philosophical problem I was facing: if there is a loud noise of a tree falling in the forest but no tree is to be found, then did a tree really fall?

I chuckled within.  What a nerd, I thought to myself!  A smile might have even escaped my lips, I would imagine.

Two minutes later, there it was. A big branch across the bike path.  And my neighbors standing on the other side. R was on the phone.

"What did you do?" I asked D.

Apparently the tree cracked and branches fell only a step or two behind them."R is talking to the city" she said.

A dude, perhaps in his late 20s, on a bike stopped.  He took the earbuds out and let them hang.

"I bet a couple of us can lift and at least push these off to the side" I said as I grabbed one end of a weighty branch.  The dude, who had meanwhile parked his bike, grabbed the other and we heaved it off to the side.  And another.

We then went about clearing the broken branches off the bikepath.

R was done with the phone call, and he and D said bye and started walking home.  I stayed back for a couple more minutes pushing the debris away and looking at the scene.  The dude hopped back on his bike and sped.

I slowly walked towards home.  It felt good that we regular folks cleared the potential hazards from the path.  A couple of hands can get things done.

The next day, I again ran into D and R--I was returning home, while they had just started the walk.

"Don't break any trees today" I joked.  We laughed.

It has been a couple of days since.  The broken branches continue to lie there by the side. 

R says the city made it clear it is not the city's legal responsibility.

Charles Dickens said it best for all of us via Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist: "The law is a ass--a idiot."