On a corner on which people lived sixty years ago but the roads were widened, and the houses torn down, but a few plum trees continue to grow

Today this street corner is a very busy intersection. But a couple of generations ago it was a rather country-like spot, and the people who lived there had apple trees and plum trees, and decorative pines at the edges of their properties. You'd almost never know it today. The houses are gone. The apples are gone. Newer houses are built on the edges of the property, like rows of houses in any subdivision. The pines are tall but spindly. And, here, there are a half dozen barely living plums, all badly infected with the fungus "black knot." Today all of them are blooming anyway.