Both of us sat down on the ground, our knees weak. Al had just stepped back to tug a branch out of his way when the tree’s heavy root ball snapped the tree upright again. The helmet would not have protected him from an uppercut to the chin from a hefty, thirty-foot-tall tree. The powerful swing of its root ball was terrible to imagine. I was surprised I hadn’t felt the thunder of it through my boots. The thought of one of us--or maybe just our heads--being literally catapulted through the air still gives me chills.