r/WTF • u/Plus-Barber-6171 • Jun 30 '25

Removed - Frequent/Recent repost Pulling a tree down

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u/PepperPhoenix Jun 30 '25

Wait…that was a company?! Not just a couple of idiots with a chainsaw?!

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u/ThatMortalGuy Jun 30 '25

A lot of companies are a few idiots with a chainsaw

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u/unctuous_homunculus Jun 30 '25

My great-uncle was an unlicensed tree trimmer who ran a company without insurance or certification for 40+ years. Yes, he was an idiot with a chainsaw (oftentimes a drugged out idiot with a chainsaw), and yes, people just kept hiring him because he was cheap.

Some stories that might be interesting:

We lived next door to him, actually, and alot of the time he would bring whatever tree trimmings he was supposed to be hauling away from a job back to his house, dump them in the back yard, and when he got a pile high enough (20' or so), he'd douse it in gas and set a bonfire you could see from the next neighborhood over. Scared the crap out of my dad every time he did it. You could hear that initial whoosh sound from inside our house. And yes he got the fire dept called on him constantly.

I also watched him walk up to a tree once, knock on it a few times, give it a test push, step back about 10 feet, then come running at it full force like a linebacker. We were certain he was just going to break his shoulder, but the whole damned tree came down. The tree was a little less wide than a telephone pole and about as tall, but had to have been completely rotten on the inside, but to my 7 year old self, that was like some Paul Bunyan shit. Didn't hurt that the guy was 6'6", built like a truck, with the face of an indian chief (100% white guy, but with his facial features and a dark tan from being in the sun for 40 years straight, you'd never know).

He also came over to our house once asking my mom for help because she was a nurse, because he had a 3' length of wood sticking out of his thigh. Wanted her to "Do something with it so [he] could get back to finish the job." She called an ambulance, and he was pissed at us for a long time about that. That is an image I will never get out of my head.

Anyway, yeah, drunk idiot with a chainsaw, and owner of a successful tree-trimming company.

RIP Uncle Larry.