Interloper

I was in the neighborhood, so why not meander through the campus. A stroll down memory lane, as they say.

When I took a tumble at the broken-up base of the sharp descent from the Stevens Creek Trail to the end of Crittenden Lane, I could not have imagined that one day—25 years later—it would be luxuriously transformed, graded gently and paved smooth.

Corporate campuses in the Valley rise and get recycled as technologies wax and wane. In this neighborhood, territory that was occupied by Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics in their heyday has since been absorbed by Google. Many buildings remain, and new ones have been erected.

If this were your workplace, you just might find the place attractive enough to return to the office.

What will become of this place, 25 years hence? The revolutionary design of the building where I did my graduate work (nearly brand new, at the time), did not age well; I learned recently that it has been torn down.

I was amused to see that the local population of cliff swallows quickly embraced their new habitat. Somehow I doubt this was architecturally intended.

A thin, muddy stream of Stevens Creek was flowing toward the Bay, enough (for now) to sustain some of the marsh plants. Enough to draw your attention away from the high-voltage transmission towers.

A well-intentioned (but deteriorating) fitness trail was torn out and redone with native plants a few years ago. A loop on this trail was great for walking one-on-one meetings, and this morning I fell into line behind a few turkeys. [Literally.] The birds were completely indifferent having me on their tail. [Okay, I know where this is going ...]

I was tempted to uproot an invasive thistle plant along the trail, but couldn't tackle that without gloves. The native flora have flourished (and thus, the return of native fauna).

I continued my trek to the nearby rookery. The egret chicks were a-chattering, and some adults sat tall on their nests.

The black-crowned night herons were present and accounted for, too.

Twenty-five years hence, I likely won't be here. But if the trees and the plants are, the birds will be.