Only God can make a tree, the old adage goes. But only L.A. can make it a star.
Like fans coming to pay homage to an idol, hundreds of families, dancers, musicians, Native Americans, and a guy who laid down a $100 offering, converged beneath the branches of an endangered old oak in Santa Clarita Saturday. They turned a narrow canyon road into a bizarre sideshow featuring a would-be actor and part-time teacher perched in the tree targeted to be bulldozed for a highway.
A group of girls in rhinestone-studded jumpsuits danced before the tree. A flutist and drummer softly played their music beneath its shade. Native Americans tied colorful ribbons to a nearby fence on land they believe is sacred. Passersby honked.
And scores of visitors just stood around gazing at the tree and John Quigley, the 27-year-old Pacific Palisades man who has been sitting in it for 16 days.
"This is a hands-on experience," said David Krebs, who drove 55 miles from Anaheim for a Nature 101 lesson for his two children. Sure, they were also visiting nearby relatives, but being witness to a live act that is "saving the environment is important," he said.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Santa Clarita environmental group that is staging the sit-in met with representatives of the developer who was told by Los Angeles County to cut it down. They called in a mediator to help them along.
The one issue they all agreed on Saturday is a news blackout on talk details. Even the location of their meeting was kept secret. Rumor had it that they were holed up in a booth at a nearby Coco's restaurant. But they weren't there.
"We have a very hopeful feeling as a result of the negotiations," is all Lynne Plambeck, president of SCOPE, the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning and the Environment, would say.
She visited Quigley after the meeting, telling him to hang in there. Quigley, a part-time environmental teacher the group recruited to the cause, said that the holidays are his slow time and he would be the tree's live-in guardian for as long as it takes.
One sheriff's deputy guarded the tree as fans pressed up against a chain-link fence erected around it for safety reasons. The tree and Quigley have become an overnight sensation as recent media reports heightened attention to its plight and his mission.
Parked cars lined Pico Canyon Road for more than a quarter of a mile. The crowds arrived in waves, at times throughout the day reaching about 200, then receding to a dozen or so.
