Thirty five years ago my life revolved around grad school at UC Berkeley and KPFA Radio. Yesterday, on a damp and foggy December afternoon, I wandered through my old haunts. The radio station stopped broadcasting from its prime location on Shattuck and Allston years ago and the original Edy's ice cream shop on the first floor, that served as our conference room, is gone as well. Developers spent a lot of money rehabbing the building where rain and the rare snowflake entered directly behind the editing machine I once used. Now it is a slick-looking FedEx office and the surrounding streets are filled with new buildings.

Although my alma mater has many new buildings in what used to be open spaces, it was comforting to find that the grove of blue gum eucalyptus remains with its bark of many colors. Back in my grad school days walking among these stalwart guardians of calm and grace always helped me change gears from harried radio producer to student. Stopping to look at their beauty and breathe their scent made me smile back then and did so again three decades later. When it comes to maintaining perspective on one's life, the tallest hardwood trees in our land are wonderful teachers...