Talent in the trees

This massive tree is the silver maple in my back yard. Most likely it's been here since the house was built in 1916, so that makes it around 91 years old. Fortunately it's healthy, but I keep an eye on it and sometime on Thursday night one of its limbs did partially crack. When I walked outside on Friday morning with my coffee, I could see a branch, 30' high and 15' long, nicely resting on the electric and phone wires of my house and my neighbor's.
I've already mentioned my frustration with the electric company. And I'll skip over the triangulated complaining of my neighbors (we've now made peace).
Yesterday the guys from Matt's Tree Service (true name) showed up to take it down. Neither one of them, by the way, was Matt. Tree guy #1 had 4 rings in his lower lip and a sprinkling elsewhere around his head. He was talkative and funny and had lots of stories about how droping an ax on his foot broke a bunch of bones. This was all while he was loading himself up with ropes, chain saw and various other things in preparation for getting up in the tree. Tree guy #2 just sauntered around the yard chatting quietly on his cell. It looked like they were hardly working together.
I didn't want TG1 to think I was supervising, so I asked if I could watch them take the branch down. No problem, he said, enjoy the show. He climbed a 10' ladder to get into the branches and then started climbing the tree. First he had to get to about 60' to find a branch to hang a safety rope for himself and another to anchor the branch. And did I mention that we had 25-30 mph "breezes" yesterday?I asked TG2 if he knew why the branch went down. He thought it might have just been the direction of the wind or "maybe just a really big squirrel." So TG2 had a sense of humor, too! When TG1 climbed down to the level of the branch, TG2 started to show his stuff. He picked up a 10' pole with a saw on one end (the pole was grounded to prevent electric shocks) and began to saw off the branch from the ground. (That takes tremendous arm strength. I can barely use a screwdriver over my head.) They made good progress for awhile but then they couldn't get the main part of the branch off the line. And they couldn't cut it from the tree until they'd done that. It really took some good communication and a some creative thinking for it all to happen safely. When the branch finally came down safely, TG1 (from his post 30' up) gave a hearty "good job" to TG2. Nice to hear from two tree guys working together.
I have to add that in another part of the yard was a young woman I'd hired from Craig's List to help get a garden in shape for next spring. In the theme of book arts, I am not kidding when I tell you that her real and given name is Paper.