Daylia, if you want the subtext discussion to stop, then cease giving with one hand and taking with the other. A close reading would have indicated that if I responded, I'm at work. But you'd try the patience of a saint, Robin Hood or not, with the continual picking at the remarks of Mudcatters who don't meet your approval.

Your "wink" symbol doesn't fool anyone into thinking that it is meant to smooth over the barb in your words. Getting the last word isn't going to happen when the ointment you use to sooth your verbal pricks is filled with itching powder. They're just begging to be scratched. So if I respond testily when providing a clarification or correction, don't suggest that I don't have sense of humor then post links to define jokes. I have a fine sense of humor when there is something that is really meant to be laughed at, and I can deliver puns that will zing into the stratosphere over your head.

This thread appears to have been plagued by Oak Wilt.

The following opinion has great value and merit and given enough time, the post from the fellow at the feltwellnorfolk.freeserve site may have equal credibility. It has to stand a test of time (and in this case, it also passed a peer review). I picked the following up via JSTOR, an academic database. It came up on a search for "Oak Trees" so somewhere in the article is a discussion of Oaks, but I'm not going to read for it right now. From the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London

PAPERS READ


Before The


ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.





I.-Notes of a Journey through Tezas and New Mexico, in the Years 1841 and 1842. By THOMAS FALCONER, Esq., of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn.



IN the following notes it is proposed to give the outline of a journey through Texas and New Mexico. They have no claim to scientific accuracy, for most of my papers, as well as those of my companions, especially some containing an estimate of each day's journey, and the bearings of the course followed, were, together with a collection of shells and minerals which I had made, taken possession of, with the baggae of my party, by the Mexican authorities in New Mexico. All that can be recorded is the general characteristics and condition of the country traversed, as indicatjng the peculiarities of some districts which may deserve examination when the pending contest between Texas and Mexico shall terminate, and a more pacific disposition among the Indian tribes or the north towards strangers than prevails at present shall permit it to be made.
I left Galveston for Houston March 12., 1841, in a steamer drawing about three and a half feet or water. The wind had been blowing hard, and "had blown the water out of the bay," so that we were unable to cross Red Fish Bar, on the N. of Galveston Bay. We grounded in about three and a. quarter feet of water, and remained unable to move for upwards of twenty- four hours. On the morning of the l4th we passed Harrisburgh, situated at the side of Buffalo Bayou. . .

SRS