Euc Men By Definition

Rob Askine and I got together after work one day in the summer of 1980 at “Zot’s” aka the Alpine Inn. Zot’s is where a lot of guys from McClenahan would come after work. Dirt parking lot, carved-up picnic tables inside a 100-year old frame building. The bill of fare is beer and grease burgers. A real Euc hang-out. So, Rob was talking about how McClenahan had special crews for specific work: oak crew, ornamental pruning crew, backyard crew, front yard crew, the euc crew. These guys were the barbarians of tree work. All they did everyday was brutal pruning and removal of huge eucs, day after day after day. They very rarely came in early on Monday and never worked past 11:00 a.m. on a Friday. We were laughing and thinking about these guys and all of a sudden we had EUC Men. These were the men of the beat-up Fords and Four Wheel Drives and the brush trailer towed by a car.

The Oak Man and Euc Man are our mythical characters like Paul Bunyan. I believe that we are entitled to a folklore and legends all our own.

As we began to create the Euc Man, I realized that we needed a counterpart, an opposite, an Oak Man.

Oak is regined, Euc is crude. Oak is fine wine, Euc is rotgut whiskey. Oak is museums on Sunday, Euc is weekends in Jail. Oak is “the right tool for the right job,” Euc is “get a bigger hammer!” Oak Men are doomed to spend their time dreaming up better ways of doing things that take more time and cost more money. Euc Men are doomed in the belief that a brute strength and a big Stihl are the answer to all tree problems.

Have fun with the concept of Oak/Euc. See how your friends stack up. Remember that there are few if any total Oak Men or Euc Men. Almost everyone has tendencies one way or the other with balancing traits. I’m basically an Oak Man with severe Euc tendencies. I’ll wear a custom wool suit to a banquet, but instead of Gucci’s there’s cowboy boots and I’ll race Bailey Hudson across the tops of the tables.