Clinton must save treehouse, image

This is a bit of righteous indignation from a Southerner living in California. I saw the story about the Clinton man who built a wonderful Victorian treehouse for his children and their friends, only to have a local bureaucratic bully threaten to tear it down ("Clinton aldermen deny treehouse appeal," Aug. 7).

The late Charles Kuralt used to do stories showing children in little towns like Clinton could still have the freedom we remembered from our childhoods. Those stories would be filled with treasures like tree houses — where kids could have secret clubs, read books and escape from grownups.

But in Clinton they have a grownup bully who is sending an awful message to these children and to anyone else who might think of moving there — people like those retirees the town is trying to attract with its "livable city" web site. Only, now, Clinton doesn't come off as some bastion of Southern graciousness — it comes off as a place where they tear down treehouses, for God's sake.

Children have enough to worry about these days with creeps grabbing kids out of their yards and out of their bedrooms. Now their safe place — their tree house — is being threatened by a modern-day Grinch.

If the people in Clinton have a lick of sense, they will save that treehouse, call it grandfathered in or something, and invite the national media back for a happy ending to that story, headlined: Treehouse Saved in Clinton — a Livable City for Kids!

Jeannie Grand
Manhattan Beach, Calif.

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