Johnny_Mango called it the best tree in Albuquerque. Up along the north diversion channel bike trail, it’s a sweet spot of shade with a lovely log bench. But for the last couple of years, it has been the site of a strange struggle.

For a long time, the bench sprouted banana peel stickers. Someone was stopping there for a snack and carefully arranging the stickers in geometric designs on the bench. Then one day I rode by and saw no stickers. Someone had carefully scraped them all off. Then I saw some more stickers appear. Again, they were scraped off.

I’m not sure if it’s a detente that we’ve currently got, or what. On the back side of the bench there are currently 10 stickers (or were, rather, as of yesterday afternoon), two groups of five arranged in little crosses.