Captain of industry puts the axe to La Jolla’s Lorax tree

In the town of La Jolla, at the edge of Scripps Park

Grew a Monterey Cypress, full of sap, leaves, and bark.

A healthy old tree, and quite famous to boot

Since it helped Dr. Seuss make a boatload of loot.

That tree and no other was fluffy enough

To start the Doc thinking of something called Truff-

ula — yes! What an excellent name!

(He asked his friend Lorax, and he thought the same.)

And in no time at all, he’d published a tale

That made the old Onceler look destined to fail.

A mismanaged market, a finite supply

A fiasco to blame on a self-centered guy.

But fifty years later, the truth can be told

Old bosses don’t fail, they don’t even get old!

The tree was a relic, its race had been run

Once Seuss made his money, its work was all done.

UNLESS, I surmised — and my thinking was sound —

UNLESS some new path to a profit was found.

And that’s why I felled it, and chopped it in chunks

Into branches, and twigs, even slices of trunks.

The tree from the plea to keep old Earth alive

Can be yours — well, in part — for just $12.95.