University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

Page 29 text:

Fork leaves the grounds is the spot where, one hot summer, Mexican Jose turned the creek upside down in search of gold. There is gold along this creek, it is true, but it is the gold of beauty. The Botany Garden, too, tucked in between the Observatory and North Hall slopes, has a story to tell a story of climate, for its blooms are the snow of ' winter. Daffodils, violets and jonquils in December, lilies and hyacinths |.ilacs from northern Europe, ericas from Africa, magnolias from Carolina. n, sequoias from snowy Sierra, palms from the Indies, yuccas from naavwalk around its paths and walk around the world! glade, between Observatory Hill and the heels of Old nee of peppermints and iron barks, this is surely a piece PoLone half expects a wallaby , to jumj , started from yonder . lAkts of our minia- No one setting s nita ' s you Alumni for a si aps, the ; a feter years e forest, a huge sunken bowl lyptus, reaching skyward a f leaves. If an eastern man ind him of the class-day spectacle is lien WeeJT of carpeted earth, banked with gray hundred feet r more, and roofed vi wants to know of Berkeley ' s tradition; held here in the young days of May. In April and May, the flank of Number Hill. skirting this eucalyptus glade, is a veritable bee pasture. Knoll and slope and dei. i vered with wild currants. pnppies and larkspurs. When there ' s a taste of salt in the air, with the wind blowing fresh from the Pacific, the flashes of color and patches of wild oats, moving in wave-like mimicry, transform the plac into a painted sea. Over near Strawberry Creek, the oaks and laurels are thick again. The once famous Post-office oak is hereabouts. It stands a little apart from the grove, along the creek, but. unless you can discover a deep wind-crack, or post-box. in the trunk, it is hard to distinguish the Post-office oak from the rest of them.

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It is a curious fact that our Blue and Gold predecessors have touched very lightly on the beauty of either landscape or water. One of this unhappy race, however, mentions the oak-tree groves, where coyotes, Mexicans, and students have successively flourished. French Charlie, too, who kept the famous little restaurant at the terminus of the bob-tail line of yore, is reported as saying: Ze old oaks make ze most glorious firewoods in ze world. The-fellow-and-his-girl genus from San Francisco has been heard to say the oaks were out o ' sight. The vandal tribe of picnickers, too, who bore away armfuls of scarlet columbines and laurel blossoms, certainly showed a sort of appreciation. What with the Art School enthusiast of later years, not to speak of the camera fiend, who has been seen to gleefully press the button on some unoffending old oak, what with the Beautiful Berkeley proclamations of the brass-throated real estate man, and the specimens of feathery ferns and winter poppy petals sent all over the State by the first-year man to the village princess Berkeley ' s fame for beauty has slowly, but consistently, grown. There is some evidence, too, that one of the finest orations ever delivered in Effigy Avenue was inspired primarily by the oaks. That was on the famous evening when the first of our fair sister students arrived from Oakland via the bob-tail line, and after the Juniors of that day had been foUjGed to form a Hying wedge for her protection. Amidst an impressive silence, Imikeu oji.ly by the coyote yelpings from Old Mountain, the orator proceeded to call dwn blessings on the new institution. Straightway, said he, must the men of tjjtlil ' orttlji christen the daintiest of their oaks ' Vivianna ' her name for. like our sister stu- dent, the oak is evergreen; like her, the oak is here to stay ; like her, the dear old oak casts its arms abroad, ever ready to embrace its fellows. .excitement at this ;, however, was so t that the orator rt hurriedly com- d to i n t e r v i e w . ;, Fluszgott of .wherry ( ' reek. The oaks of the - i M Tniversity grounds, however, hold no monopoly of either beauty or tradition. Near this famous oak grove, North-Fork joins Strawberry after a trip around Observatory Hill, and northward of the football campus. North-Fork is a stream of perpetual shade a veritable tangle of wild rose and blackberry, of laurel and creek willow, with here and there a sentinel oak. Brush aside a web of creepers, and your reward is a wealth of fern, scarlet columbine, and thimble-berry blossom. Where North-

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The romantic young lady and her student friend must have had some difficulty in fishing each other ' s letters from the bottom of this post-box ; but it is not hard to imagine how the rival, who attempted one night to purloin the young lady ' s letter, got his hand .jammed in the crack and was held there till she canu- along in the morning for her property, and (after he had sought her pardon very humbly) had him liberated. Strawberry Canyon, on the south side of the grounds, is the most frequented tramp in Berkeley, perhaps because one may stroll along the upper creek bed and lose sight of all that reminds him of a town forget, for a little while, streets, and houses, and gardens . . . and books. Runnins hill, over a tumbled bed of boulders and through, ! laurel and willow, and tangled disorder of creeper an untamed beauty and waywardness that pleases as V hen, in .May days, the creek bank is dot- ted with pale blos- soms o blue eyes and pi bu the walls of the els i if oak and Creek has -land can- croons himself the shade the busht-- - .ines back from the South; when, half sad, half svpt fi5sSp R[gU - ' iic by the breeze from the distant oaks, while f ronfffci Stl jyP cuhyo.fi. tin- t ' alifornia jay (a grave old cynic) is heard laughing m erMffipETlliaa BpBgh then will Strawberry Canyon surely repay a visit. : lf f Many are the places among 1 Berkeley ' s hills and canyons where Oberon and Titania hold their revels, nor need one have partaken of the mystic fern-seed to enjoy a tramp ; but, as the monk of the Tyrol said to his brother friar, Thine eyes are not mine nor thine ears. Go, friend, and see. 1, M. T., ( :;.