Editorial of November 20, 2025

The Tree Side of the Line Industry: How the ‘Hicks’ I Grew Up With Became the Quiet Knights Who Keep America Going

I grew up in the City of Philadelphia, nowhere near a farm, a chainsaw, or a pair of steel-toed boots.

When I moved to upstate New York as a teenager—a land of old barns, stubborn winters and families with generations of calloused hands—I stepped into a different America. An America where kids were up before dawn, milked 60 cows, and threw on their Carhartt jackets (still smelling like hay) to go to school before most of us rolled out of bed.

Back then, small family farms were everywhere, with 50, 60, maybe 100 cows. Just enough for a family to work, survive and hand the land down to their children.

Sadly, little by little, those farms faded, whether it was rising costs, expanding technology, or large companies swallowing up small operations.

And it left a big question hanging in the air: What happens to a generation of kids who were raised to work?

Many of them ended up at the occupational center at BOCES. If you grew up in the 90s, you remember how kids talked about BOCES. The jokes. The whispers.

The bus would pull up, and a handful of kids in patched Carhartts and work jeans would climb on while the “preppy” kids just smirked and giggled.

Everyone knew they weren’t the honor students or the star athletes. They were the “woodchucks,” the “hicks,” the ones everybody assumed wouldn’t amount to much because their hands were always a little too stained.

They were kids who smelled like motor oil. Kids with Husqvarna patches sewn onto their jackets. Kids who couldn’t wait to leave school to go fix a tractor or split firewood. Kids who were, in many ways, already men.

But here’s the thing: When I joined the football and wrestling teams—sports built on grit, not glamour—those “hicks” became my closest crew. In little old upstate New York, we didn’t have the best coaching or the flashiest equipment, but we had each other. And even though I never entirely belonged to their world, I lived close enough to it to feel the heartbeat of something honest.

Long after high school, I discovered what had become of many of them.

They became tree guys.

They became the men who went into the woods with ropes, saws and fearlessness.

They trimmed, felled, chipped, climbed.

They started small businesses.

I never thought much of it at the time. Back then, it just seemed like a natural continuation of who they were.

The day everything changed was when I started working in the line industry. Over the past nine months, I’ve been doing prevention and resilience work with linemen, many of whom are struggling at alarming rates with suicide, addiction, and exhaustion.

I’ve spent weekends at Local 1249 in Syracuse, New York, running Circle and helping linemen build networks of support, brotherhood, and upstream mental resilience before crisis hits.

On one of these weekend visits, a vice president at the union hall told me:
“There’s a tree rodeo north of Syracuse. You should go watch.”

In my mind, I pictured a bunch of guys racing to cut logs in half. Maybe some equipment demonstrations. Nothing special.

But what I walked into was something between a festival, a family reunion and a battlefield.

Tents. Food trucks. Kids running around with plastic chainsaws. Teams lined up in matching shirts. And everywhere I looked, all I saw were my old wrestling and football buddies, albeit older, bigger, and a lot hairier.

Someone asked me:

“Are you staying for the nighttime competition?”

I didn’t even know what that meant.

But as the sun dropped and the woods went dark, the air changed.

Dozens of men stepped into little circles of headlamp light, checking ropes, harnesses, clips, saws. It was like watching soldiers prepare for a mission.

And suddenly, they vanished—up into the pitch-black trees.

That’s what storms do.

They take the lights out.

And before a lineman can climb a pole, someone has to clear the chaos.

These tree workers, the same kids once mocked on the bus, climb into frozen branches, high winds, live wires, dangerous angles and unpredictable breaks.

In the dark.

In the rain.

In the snow.

In places most of us wouldn’t survive for more than a few minutes.

While we sit on our couch, annoyed that our phone battery is at 12 percent, they’re up in a tree with a chainsaw in 40-mile-per-hour gusts.

Watching them, I realized something: These men aren’t “hicks.” They’re knights. Quiet, rugged, self-made knights who keep America running.

They don’t ask for praise. They don’t need it.

They love the work—the smell of gasoline, the rumble of a saw in their hands, the satisfaction of taming nature just enough to keep power flowing to the grocery store, the bank, the hospital, our homes.

There’s something beautiful about that, about these kids who grew up milking cows and fixing engines. Kids whose farms disappeared, but whose purpose didn’t.

They followed their craft. They followed what they loved. And now, their work keeps the rest of us warm, connected, and safe.

And at the tree rodeo, as night fell and the helmet lights flickered in the woods, their children ran through the field pretending to be tree climbers, dreaming of the day they’d climb into the dark to keep America going.
What a gift it is to witness all of this.

What a gift that the “woodchucks” grew up to be the “guardians of the grid.”

What a gift to be reminded what real nobility looks like.

All at a little old tree rodeo in upstate New York, I discovered the truth about the working-class knights who hold this country together.

Just as they were up before the dawn, working their family farm in the wee hours of the morning, they’re the first ones into the darkness while the rest of us bundle up under the blankets.

So, the next time you see a guy at the bank with gnarled hands, smelling like oil, wearing the same jeans he wore up a tree at 3 a.m., don’t wonder why he didn’t “clean up” first. He’s the reason the bank’s lights are even on.

Tom Murphy, founder of Sweethearts & Heroes and an alumnus of Cooperstown Central School, is a nationally recognized speaker and leader in youth development, resilience, and social change. A former All-American wrestler, UFC competitor, and successful entrepreneur, Tom transitioned from a corporate career to full-time advocacy, bringing his message of empathy, H.O.P.E. (Hold On, Possibilities Exist), and action to millions of people nationwide. Through engaging workshops and powerful storytelling, he empowers communities to create lasting cultures of belonging and support.