BY Julie Bennett
22 April 2013
AUBURN, Alabama – New Yorkers pack Times Square to celebrate beginnings and ends – New Years and major triumphs. In New Orleans, revelers pack into the French Quarter for Mardi Gras, just to stroll down Bourbon Street.
In Auburn, they go to Toomer's Corner. It's a place to gather, celebrate and throw toilet paper at a pair of large oak trees.
Auburn fans have been assembling there for years. It's where everyone goes to celebrate any major victory: Iron Bowl victories, national championships, Presidential and state elections. Auburn gathers around the Toomer's oaks, where rolling the trees anchored many memories for the faithful.
In 2011, Harvey Updyke poisoned the oaks. The trees that supported a tradition four decades old began to wither.
The community tried to save them, but the poison consumed the oaks at the intersection of College Street and Magnolia Avenue. Weakened branches were pruned. Limbs were cut down to stumps. The trees still sprouted leaves, but fewer and fewer each month.
New Yorkers could celebrate New Year's without the crystal ball. New Orleans might adapt to a Mardi Gras without Bourbon Street. And Auburn fans will still gather at the front gates of Auburn University.
But the familiar shade of the landmark oak trees will be gone.
On Saturday, a record 83,401 Auburn fans packed Jordan-Hare stadium to watch their Tigers scrimmage during the A-Day spring football game. Before, during and after game, most headed over to Toomer's Corner and rolled the famous oak trees one last time.
Not to celebrate a big win -- not because their favorite candidate was elected president -- but to celebrate the trees themselves and the memories they hold for so many.
It was the best way to say farewell to a beloved tradition, in the best place to celebrate Auburn.
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