Aw that sucks, but at least you have good memories. I remember there's this one tree I would visit with my dad and sister that was completely covered in dry, dead sticks and we'd one by one get rid of the sticks and dead branches and untangle it from its mess until it was mostly free. That was really fun! I wanted to keep going but my dad wouldn't let me climb and higher to get the rest of it, so when our job was done we stopped coming.

My dad said that removing dead sticks helps the tree last longer and live better, though there's obviously no way of telling how much of a difference we actually made on that part. Still, really enjoyed it. If there's a job like that, that's probably what I'd do for a while.