Tree Squatters branch out

[BurbankKarl]

Man leaves tree home of 12 years, huts dismantled

The Associated Press

Published 11:20 a.m. PDT Wednesday, October 30, 2002 BRISBANE, Calif.(AP) - The tree home on San Bruno Mountain that attracted national attention when two squatters refused to leave a pair of meager huts after 12 years there, is now just a tree again.

Besh Serdahely, 58, cleared out of the tree house Tuesday and park officials dismantled the dwelling, two months after San Mateo County officials stapled a notice to the 300-year-old oak in August saying Serdahely and his wife, Thelma Caballero, no longer were welcome.

"I spoke to him Sunday, and he was acknowledging that this chapter was ending," said Bill Johnston, a lawyer and family friend who has been counseling Serdahely since the ordeal began.

Caballero left the tree earlier this month and is now living at a board and care facility. Serdahely apparently is going to stay with friends in San Francisco for a while, said David Schooley, a naturalist who befriended the couple years ago.

Serdahely has said he and Caballero moved into the tree house after they met at a soup kitchen in San Francisco and got married at City Hall in 1990. A friend of theirs built it and offered it to them after he got married and left.

The couple lived in the tree for a dozen years, tending to the area and educating school children who took field trips to see a different way of life. But after it was recently discovered the tree was actually part of a San Mateo County park instead of a state park, county officials ordered them to leave because there was no clean drinking water and human waste was being handled improperly.

[toenail]

You know those wind generators way the hell out in the middle of nowhere that the envirowackos pressured into slowing down, because birds were getting whacked with 'em...? Why don't the environMENTALists go wind-generator-sitting and do a scarecrow impersonation, instead of sitting in some stupid trees that never whacked any birds?

[TheMole]

But after it was recently discovered the tree was actually part of a San Mateo County park instead of a state park, county officials ordered them to leave because there was no clean drinking water and human waste was being handled improperly.

You mean if it had really been inside a state park these two could have just rocked on? Did they make a contribution to Gray Davis or something?

[Rebelbase]

"scarecrow impersonation, "

Off-track for a moment. I was way out in the foothills country yesterday and noticed a body slumped over laying in the mud out in a field. Turned out to be a very life-like scarecrow....Freaked me good.

[Consort]

Are the taking root?

[Consort]

"the" = "they".