ON THE STREET WHERE I live now, there’s one solitary maple tree — a red maple, Acer rubrum — that appears to have struggled through 10 or 12 blistering South California summers. Right now, the lone maple’s leaves have turned but are still attached; dead and red and reddish orange and reddish gold. By the time you read this, I imagine they will have fallen, so you’ll have to trust me: worth looking at.
Which is what I was doing. I was standing there, on the sidewalk, looking at this tree for maybe a minute. The red maple is a very creative tree. Late each spring, as its flowers die, it sends out seeds to the wind in "maple keys" — little winged pods that flutter and descend in spirals to the ground. They look just like little helicopters.
Some elderly neighbors approached on foot from the south. I stepped off the sidewalk so they could pass, and went back to looking at the red maple. What the hell is a red maple doing in South California?
But instead of passing, they stopped to join me in looking at whatever it was I was looking at. So I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and we nodded in silent greeting, and then watched, standing together, the leaves.
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