And now, a story

For the show i wrote about the Stop the Spadina Expressway struggle i wove in a number of relevant wisdom tales. Here's one:

I love the story of the dining hall at Oxford. The ceiling of the hall had been made from great oak beams that after 400 years were falling apart. Oxford wanted to preserve the architecture and so sought for oak beams that would replace the aging ones. But they were told that there were no oak trees large enough – due to logging – from which to make the needed beams. It was then that one of the carpenters noticed the stand of ancient oaks right beside the dining hall. They were huge and could provide the beams that were needed. And then they realized that the builders of the dining hall 400 years earlier knew that one day the hall would need repaired. And thus had planted the oaks that they knew would one day be used to maintain their work.