There resounds a proverbial question, “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound as it falls?” Capricious as this query may appear I have had occasion to entertain just such a notion when, as a youth, I found an exploratory journey down a deep wood’s path abruptly halted by the greeting of an enormous fallen tree. The colossal obstacle lay across my path and presented itself a motionless, silent guardian that protected that which lay beyond from my further intrusion. What a monumental disturbance must have been witnessed by the forest as this giant came crashing down! I wondered how the tree came to be there in the f