“What do you think of all the palm trees that are being planted around town?” he asked.

“I like them,” I said,. “California is paradise. We’re the capitol of paradise.”

“But the way they plant them,” he said. “They bring them in full grown on a truck and suddenly we have big trees.”

“It makes sense of you think about it,” I told him. “Buildings go up in three to six months where it used to take a year or more. If they can dig a huge hole for the girders, it is good they are finally digging a hole big enough for mature palm trees.

“I know what you mean. I love the old date palms. They are rich and mysterious. You can look at them for hours, look up into their darkness, linger in their shade. If you lie down and go to sleep you hear pigeions coo. At night nite birds sing love songs. It’s quite beautiful. I know a guy who doesn’t care to look at date palms, but in summer he sits on the porch at night, or walks all over where the date palms are because he loves the night birds singing in them. He says they take him to another realm.

“Date palms go with old architecture. There are lots of subtleties. New palms go with new buildings – sleek and photogenic. If somebody sees a photograph of a date palm outside a Victorian, they will think it’s neat, but they won’t think of Sacramento as paradise. If they see a photo of a shiny new building with tall palm trees outside, clouds reflected in the glass, and blue sky and mountains in the distance, they will get romantic or poetic or something. They will think how exciting it will be to drive to work and see the mountains, take the elevator to the twentieth floor, then step into their office to look all day at the Coast Range.

“The sky has a lot to do with paradise. I love the richness of the blue sky and the dreaminess of puffy clouds when I look at palm tree books. I know our sky isn’t the bluest, but on clear cold days the palm trees and sky are exquisite. On those day I feel like I am in paradise.”

“So we need more?” he asked, “so you can feel like you are in paradise?”

“We need more,” I said, “because times are changing. We aren’t planting tall trees we used to plant like elms, sycamores, eucalyuptus – the trees that shaded us and made us famous.

“We need tall palm trees to give grandeur to our city, so people can get excited looking at our city from an airplane or driving down from the Sierras. We are planting hundreds of thousands of medium size trees to shade us and provide us with something pleasing to look at. Imagine how exciting it will be to see miles of trees beneath tall palms, especially when it’s windy and clear and the subtle slopes of the Coast Range are seen acroos the valley.

“This has been an age of having an image. Even more now with computer graphics and photography. We live in a paradise that also looks like paradise if we photograph it properly.”

“What you are saying is that image is more important than substance,” he said.

“Yes.”

We looked at eaxch other.

“But not to me,” I said. “I love to be excited talking about how great we are. I love promotional photoghraphs of our city. I want an office on the twentieth floor, not so I can flatter myself with self-importance as I pull into the garage, then strut past my receptionist when the elevator opens into my office.

“I want to take a long time walking up the stair well, put my briefcase down and look out from each landing as I come up. My office on the twentieth floor will be a place I feel lucky for what we have. I’ll love our city and rivers and trees and mountains more every year.”

“What about people?” he asked.

I stopped.

“These aren’t times of affection or enthusiasm towards each other,” I told him. “We will never love each other more. We need more trees. We need clean air. Then we can lose ourselves in the trees and the passion we feel looking at the mountains.

“We have a great city for people to be in love in – the rivers, trees, mountains, our weather. That’s an angle we have not publicized. I think we are afraid to.

“I becomer sadder as I talk. You’re right. It is a shame our beautiful trees, especially palms and the paradise they represent and the future that will be theirs, don’t make me attached to people here. I love our natural stuff more each year, but feel increasing emptiness – that something isn’t right with me, you, us, our city, our times.

“It gets me mad. Part of paradise in the tropics was people’s sense of belonging. We’ve almost got the weather. We’re working on our trees. But we’ll never have the belonging they had in paradise.

“Remember I mentioned the guy who loves to listen to night birds sing in date palms? That’s what paradise is like – birds everywhere. We need big colorful birds taking off with a screech form tall palm trees.”

“That would be great to see from your office,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Then when it’s dark and I’m the last one to leave the building, I will sit at the fountain until night birds start singing from old date palms.”

“All that passion will make you sad for the people you aren’t close to in your city you love so much,” he said.

“That’s true,” I replied. “When I listen to the night birds I’ll feel sad and lucky at the same time. I’ll feel sad there is no feeling of community. I’ll feel lucky I’m one of the few who has a view of paradise.”

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko