The Trouble with Tree Condoms

This evening I noticed the matches I'm literally and figuratively burning through are (apparently) fashioned from trees from responsible forests.

I like to think they're referring to the way the trees were raised before they were chopped down and shredded so I could use a dozen to try and light my pipe on a breezy evening. Before the can reproduce, the pine trees are lawfully wed. The male tree has an acceptable job plus prospects. All are from good families and go to tree church regularly.

This is probably not what is meant by "responsible forests." What likely is meant is the forests from which the matches are culled are tended responsibly.

Now.

What they're probably leaving out, is the pines that make my matches are grown responsibly on the site of a forest where oak and possibly sequoia once stood. Maybe they were even grown in the same forest from which my hickory dining table or cherry rocking chair were harvested.

Later this summer, as the annual wildfires destroy thousands of western acres, I'll light my pipe here in the East without irony or guilt, knowing full well that when those irresponsible forests, with their loose ways and free tree love, will be replaced by responsible, straight pines suitable for new home construction as well as for matches.