At current posting, we are not getting much news out of the Keys. I received an email Saturday morning from a friend who was riding out Irma at our house. Our neighbor’s ficus tree had crunched his house. It’s the same ficus that fell on our house in 1998, right after Dick and I had moved into our newly restored Conch home in Old Town, KW.

When Hurricane Georges struck Key West that September, Shel Silverstein’s ficus tree toppled onto our home, miraculously not causing much damage. Shel asked if we would leave it until he could get a tree crew to right the tree. The ficus, he said, had been his inspiration for The Giving Tree.

From the Miami Herald:

There was plenty of damage in Key West: Surge swamped streets to hip level near Mallory Square, wrecked boats near Galleon Marina and toppled ficus trees onto cars. The huge trees also smashed parts of two houses on Williams Street — one, neighbors said, belonging to the late, great children’s book author Shel Silverstein.

The view after the storm.

The Giving Tree Movie Spoken By Shel Silverstein