The most depressing thing about loving soccer in the USA is seeing the pattern of everyone not care, then misunderstand, then get hype, then clown on soccer once the USMNT lose, then just move on.
Repeat every 4 years.
America burned Japan's first gift of cherry trees. All 2,000 of them, on President Taft's direct order.
The 1910 shipment arrived in DC crawling with insects and nematodes. Agriculture inspectors condemned the lot, Taft signed off on the bonfire, and the State Department braced for a diplomatic disaster. Tokyo's mayor, Yukio Ozaki, responded by sending 3,020 more, grafted from the famous grove along the Arakawa River.
Those trees have spent a century paying the friendship back.
Four days after Pearl Harbor, vandals chopped down four of them. Park officials renamed the survivors "Oriental" cherry trees for the rest of the war to protect them from axes.
Then came the twist. By 1952 the original Arakawa grove in Tokyo, the parent stock, had nearly died from wartime neglect. Japan asked Washington for help. The Park Service shipped budwood from DC's trees back across the Pacific and restored the grove that created them. When a flood wiped out more Japanese trees in 1982, horticulturists took 800 fresh cuttings from the Tidal Basin.
These 250 new trees solve a real problem too. The Tidal Basin is sinking, and a $133 million seawall rebuild forced crews to rip out roughly 150 trees. Japan offered replacements before anyone asked, timed to America's 250th birthday.
So the genetics run in a loop. Tokyo's grove seeded Washington's. Washington's saved Tokyo's. The saplings going in this spring descend from both.
114 years of diplomacy, running on grafted branches.
4th of July at Weidner Field 😍
Join us next weekend, as the Switchbacks take on Phoenix Rising FC.
After the final whistle, you can stay in the stands or go onto the pitch to experience the fireworks show from a magical view that you can only get at Weidner Field 🎆
🎟️ Tickets are selling fast, so grab yours before they're gone.
https://t.co/wRsOiVI0b2
Jerry: She has a penis?
George: She had a PENIS, Jerry!
Elaine: So what if she had a penis?
(Kramer enters)
Elaine: Kramer, would you ever date a girl with a penis?
Kramer: I only date girls with penises
George: Really? Why?
Kramer: She knows her way around the equipment
The USMNT 🇺🇸 is about to deploy a 38 year old Tim Ream and Miles Robinson on defense vs Germany.
Germany hasn’t seen a defense this bad since France in World War 2