hey, it's Old Home Week for Berkeley! I know we walked there some - i recognize that particular live oak -- have a photo of me there, camera yours! I just wish I'd have been the "naturalist"/birder then ('61-'67) that I've evolved into now!!!
I came to grad school at UCB and lived in a few of those student apartments before buying half a duplex in the flats in 1988 at what seemed an exorbitant price then. As you say, current prices are unaffordable. However, Strawberry Canyon, Tilden Park, the Berkeley-Oakland hills remain much the same thanks to the East Bay Regional Park District which has acquired, preserved and protected these and other significant parcels in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. One can still walk the trails, sometimes rarely encounter others, see and/or hear an occasional coyote and other wildlife. Now is the time for spring flowerings. The hills are green and wet.
A small world. I also was at UCB, but in the sixties pursuing a physics major. I remember Strawberry Canyon and the trail up past Livermore lab. Seemed dark and spooky. Always makes me think of Van Morrison singing "Brown Eyed Girl." Go figure. Later, my PhD niece lived in one of those places you mentioned perched up on the West Hills.. and got married nearby!
What's all this got to go with your really fine essay? Well, maybe because that delightful flower was there in all those decades as we migrated through. Somehow it has survived us and continues it's quiet life, inspiring us at times.
hey, it's Old Home Week for Berkeley! I know we walked there some - i recognize that particular live oak -- have a photo of me there, camera yours! I just wish I'd have been the "naturalist"/birder then ('61-'67) that I've evolved into now!!!
I came to grad school at UCB and lived in a few of those student apartments before buying half a duplex in the flats in 1988 at what seemed an exorbitant price then. As you say, current prices are unaffordable. However, Strawberry Canyon, Tilden Park, the Berkeley-Oakland hills remain much the same thanks to the East Bay Regional Park District which has acquired, preserved and protected these and other significant parcels in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. One can still walk the trails, sometimes rarely encounter others, see and/or hear an occasional coyote and other wildlife. Now is the time for spring flowerings. The hills are green and wet.
This is such a neat vignette. A special respite from man's destruction. Nature, red in lips and claw.
A small world. I also was at UCB, but in the sixties pursuing a physics major. I remember Strawberry Canyon and the trail up past Livermore lab. Seemed dark and spooky. Always makes me think of Van Morrison singing "Brown Eyed Girl." Go figure. Later, my PhD niece lived in one of those places you mentioned perched up on the West Hills.. and got married nearby!
What's all this got to go with your really fine essay? Well, maybe because that delightful flower was there in all those decades as we migrated through. Somehow it has survived us and continues it's quiet life, inspiring us at times.