It’s almost exactly fours years to the day that Alabama “fan” Harvey Updyke went on the Paul Finebaum radio show and claimed that he had poisoned Auburn’s famed Toomer’s Corner oak trees following the 2010 Iron Bowl. It’s been nearly two years since the oaks were rolled one final time before they were removed, even as less than a year earlier there was some hope that the Spike 80DF herbicide used on them by Updyke wouldn’t inflict permanent damage.
The renewed rolling of the trees on Toomer’s Corner, though, is right around the, well, corner.
As previously planned, a pair of 35-foot live oak trees arrived on The Plains Friday, shipped in, along with a spare -- you never know when one of the other two will get Updyked -- from a grove in South Carolina. Saturday morning, hundreds of people showed up and watched as the new trees were planted at Toomer’s Corner.
“It’s not just a tree, it’s symbol of Auburn,” Auburn student Tommy Pinkard told al.com. “It’s a family here, and when you do something to one of us you do it to all of us. So the trees really have a lot of meaning, especially since you had someone take away what meant so much to everyone.”
While the new trees are now in place, the tradition of rolling them won’t resume until the fall of 2016 as the university has asked that fans refrain from showering the trees with toilet paper until they have the chance to establish roots.
Good wins over evil as there are once again two lives oaks at Toomer's Corner. War Eagle! #ToomersForever pic.twitter.com/6NLjR08TkY
— AUFAMILY.com (@AUFAMILY) February 14, 2015
Now, hopefully, this will be the last time that we ever have to use the name “Harvey Updyke” in a post. Well, unless the man arrested and convicted of the crime dresses up as a dead tree for Halloween again, of course.