of bygones and joshua trees

I wonder if Bono and Edge know their Joshua tree has been gone for fifteen years?
No, I'm not referring to the 1987 album by U2. That has been preserved for generations to come by the National Recording Registry.
No, I'm talking about the lone yucca brevifolia spotted along Route 190, back in mid-December of 1986, with its twisted arms raised in the cold desert air, reaching toward the sun's warmth. I speak of that tree chosen by the band's photographer, Anton Corbijn, for its solitary existence in the arid environment.
That individual tree, once located near Darwin, California, in the Mojave Desert, is dead.
The band had no way of knowing just how old a tree it was. Growing about three inches per year for the first ten years, then less than two inches annually thereafter, the tree may have already been hundreds of years old by the time they found it. Now, it's image has been immortalized and is, in fact, used as a reference of its species.
Still, I have to wonder.
Do they know of its demise? How did that news affect the band members?
Was their sense of loss akin to mine for my bygone duty stations?
Just a stray thought as I was watching "CBS Sunday Morning" today.
Here's another one!
The only "paper" not made from tree pulp these days is our folding money. It's still made the old-fashioned way, from rags, just as my Uncle Ben made it in the younger days of this country.
That's not to say that the material found under modern writing implements is so very different from that used in bygone days. The clothing rags once used still originated from plants. Cotton and linen, right? Many types of clothing, even today, are fashioned from these natural fibers rather than from synthetic ones.
Here's a thought: can the man-made fibers be degraded into a slurry and used to make paper?
That might be a nice puzzle for an enterprising young materials scientist to set their mind to solving!
(smile)
As for me, I need to wrap this up!
I have a brunch and Bloody Marys at Dawn's in less than an hour.
I'm looking forward to that - I don't believe I've had a Bloody Mary since my stepdad died. He always made such good ones!
Bye, y'all!