By Sheila Orysiek
SAN DIEGO –I first saw this reservoir – er – lake about fifty years ago when quite by accident I wandered down the city street that leads to it. I was very disappointed. Newly arrived from the East Coast of the United States my eyes were used to lush green. The hills about this lake were a drab beige and covered in dusty scrub brush. The summer sun beat down on a few scattered picnic tables uninterrupted by shade. There was no grass dead or alive and the earth was packed sand. What a sad sight, I thought as I sat down at a picnic table and surveyed the unrelenting semi desert before me. Trees! Trees with their blessing of shade, a dappling of shadow, a home for birds; that was what was missing.
A year later through the La Mesa Jr. Women’s Club, I was able to raise funds and purchase twenty-two pepper trees and donate them to the City of San Diego to be planted at Lake Murray. They were so tiny! But pepper trees are tenacious and I hoped they would prosper. For the next several decades life distracted me with other business.
One day, seeking recovery from illness, I happened to drive down the street that led to Lake Murray. It was a very hot summer day – the parking lot was empty and I didn’t see anyone else about. I sat down on a bench in the shade of a tree. A bird chirped softly in its arching branches. I looked up at the thick boughs and dense foliage. What a blessing a tree is! As I sat considering this unique creation, I put a name to it. It was a pepper tree. I estimated its age to be about forty years.
Slowly a dim flicker of a memory came back: pepper trees – Lake Murray – forty years ago. And then the memory came flooding back. I had planted them when my life was young and now when I was in need they were here; waiting to shade me. Now when I go to the lake I love to watch families enjoying their picnics under the shade of the pepper trees. I dare to say, my pepper trees.
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Orysiek is a freelance writer who specializes in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via sheila.orysiek@sdjewishworld.com