Provincetown Heroes “Donate” Dead Trees To Ruth The Elephant – Wait, What?

Capecodonline.com – PROVINCETOWN — Conwell Ace Hardware and Lumber staff will be heading to Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford soon to deliver about 50 used Christmas trees donated for the entertainment of zoo animals including the two elephants, Emily and Ruth.

Not only have the repurposed Christmas trees found a good home — zoo animals enjoy tossing, perching on and even eating the old trees — Provincetown is also getting a chance to repay an old debt to Ruth, who in 1984 was a poorly treated petting zoo animal that marched in one of the first Provincetown Carnival parades.

“She had a horrible life and now we’re able to give her something in her later years,” Fingado said. “Elephants have a really good memory, but I hope she remembers us as the good guys and not the abusive ones.”

Let’s take a step back here shall we? Look there’s no doubt that this is a cool gesture by Conwell Ace Hardware but I think we need to dial it back a few notches on the hero angle. It’s not like they made some huge sacrifice to save this elephant’s life or something, they gave it some old dead Christmas trees. Oh wait I’m sorry, they “donated” some old dead Christmas trees.

Is there any single thing more unwanted on earth than a Christmas tree on December 26th? Hundreds of millions of people in unison wake up wondering what the hell they are going to do with the dead tree in their living room. People literally pay to have their trees taken away. So let’s not pretend these people gave up something that had any value whatsoever. Saying they “donated” these trees to Ruth the elephant is like saying I “donate” my trash to the town dump every Wednesday.

Now if you’ll excuse me I just drank a cup of coffee so I have to go make my mid morning charitable donation to my toilet.