Google Earth view of the Merrimon Magnolia
Send a photo postcard to Harris Teeter CEO Frederick J. Morganthall and his wife Judy via cardstore.com. It costs less than $2 per postcard ($1.27 from Asheville).
It’s easy. Here are the steps: 1) Download one of the images posted here (right-click or option-click, then choose “Save Image As…”). 2) Go to http://www.cardstore.com/photo-postcards.html. 3) Choose “Make a Small Postcard.” 4) Customize your card on the front with the image you chose, and 5) on the back with a message (you can copy the one I wrote, shown below, or write your own). 6) Instruct cardstore.com to send it to this address:
Frederick J. Morganthall
7625 Stonecroft Park Dr
Charlotte, NC 28226-5583
7) Check out and pay.
Magnolia blossom
PLEASE KEEP IT FRIENDLY!! 🙂 These folks are not “bad guys”. The Morgenthalls are Charlotte residents who often visit our mountains, and the Harris Teeter corporation has a great “sustainable design” policy for their stores. We just need to remind them that sustainability includes preserving Asheville’s heritage trees.
Here’s what I wrote them on the postcard I sent:
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Morganthall,
Please don’t cut down the grand old magnolia that graces the future site of a Harris Teeter on Merrimon Ave. in Asheville. This heritage tree may be a century old, and could well have been planted by Asheville’s great benefactor George W. Pack. It cannot be replaced, and seedlings do not substitute for the loss.
Merrimon Magnolia in the moonlight
I know H-T is an environmentally conscious company, and I’m very grateful you are saving the Pack mansion relics on the site. But we Ashevilleans deeply love our trees, as you can see from letters to the Mountain Xpress about this one and from the city’s successful battle to save City Hall’s magnolia.
Please preserve this tree and incorporate it into your store’s design, or consult with a skilled arborist about transplanting it nearby. If Harris Teeter saves the Merrimon Magnolia, the people of Asheville will repay your business many times over! (Just ask Stewart Coleman!)
— Steve Rasmussen
www.oldenwilde.org
srasmus@oldenwilde.org