Pruned plane trees

The air was clean after a week of torrential rainfall. I was strolling to class along Sproul Plaza, between the rows of drastically pruned London plane trees. Anyone who has spent any time on the Berkeley campus and seen those esplanades knows what they look like at this time of year, after years of severe winter pruning. Tourists who visit in the spring and summer are seldom privy to see them raise their fists to the sky, to see what power gathers under their shady foliage. Yes, the trees on Sproul Plaza, just like the ones along the Campanile, really need to be cut back each year, and severely, not just because they are a landmark but because their naked branches and their defiant limbs are a signature. I used to think they were grotesque, a tool for some socialist realist woodcut, but now I actually think they are beautiful.

Drastically, pruned, London, plane? “Do you really need all those modifiers?” I hear the voice of another constant companion, another alma mater. I can hear Josephine ask, always reminding us, her students, to cut the crap (my words), to get rid of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs. I’ll never forget the first time I met Josephine.

It was in January 1965 and having passed the plane tree esplanade, I had just entered the foyer of Dwinelle Hall, the humanities building on campus. There was a bit of commotion there, which wasn’t at all unusual in those days. Students were engaged, outspoken, sometimes even belligerent and boisterous. I noticed some male students scrambling at the bottom of the staircase to the right. All of a sudden I saw that they had hoisted an older woman above their heads and were carrying her up the stairs. The woman seemed calm enough. Though the living body bearers didn’t look like athletes, they reminded me of a football team carrying a teammate who had just scored a winning goal. Students were also considerate and helpful, and full of initiative then. “It’s Josephine Miles”, I heard someone say, “you know, the English professor who’s crippled.” I think the elevator was broken and she had a class to teach.

Perhaps that’s when I first learned that English would be the jewel of my university studies (even though I was a history major and an art minor), and that Josephine would be the personification of my Alma Mater.
Read On Inhabiting an Orange, by Josephine Miles.

To be continued...