Water Trees

Darren Senn, everybody . . .

Just spent a roaring weekend at Black Butte Ranch for the annual Get Together With A Bunch of Guys I've Known Forever celebration.

Fourth grade is when I met some of these fellers. Then high school. Then college. Same fellers, you understand. Couldn't get enough of sitting in the same classrooms so we just went ahead and all went to the same college for a while.

At that bastion of higher education known to scholars the world round as Southern Oregon State College . . . except they call it Southern Oregon University now, I think . . . SOSC to SOU. That turns the nickname from "sock" to, I dunno . . . "sow," I guess. Nice move, SOSC/SOU transition committee. Way to rebrand. Sucks you had to buy so many new doors because students started beating them down trying to get in after your snazzy updated name.

Where were we . . . ah, yes. SOSC. So the merry band of Pleasant Hill High School graduates Mike, Darren, Jude and myself arrived in Ashland and straightaway got into a big gang rumble with Cyrus Cain, Scott Milani and Darryl Coppedge. They called themselves "The Warriors." The PHill gang cruised around on rollerskates, we had our brawl, which is really hard to do on rollerskates, but then we patched things up and now we're pals.

So we play poker for three days every year, interspersed with hiking, poker, frisbee golf where Darren hits Scott's rental car with one of the little frisbees . . . also real golf where we should have tried to hit Scott's rental car with golf balls but I just thought of it now . . . and swimming pool football and whatever else.

That pose of Darren's is really something. Reeeeeaaaally something.

So before you look at the following pictures taken on our hike this year, I must warn you that they are startling. I assure you they have not been run through photoshop, but will make your eyes exit your face all the same just from sheer amazement.

The trick, my friends, is -- no. I simply cannot reveal my secrets. But check out these trees here.

Or are they?

What? Grass growing out of the sky and ripples around that tree on the left? What in the name of Zeus is . . . .

Now pine needles and pond scum? I don't . . . I just . . . how can . . . .

OK, that's too much. Now the pine needles are scattered all over the trees like some sort of Jackson Pollock-y scratchboard thing combined with an otherwise plain-jane painting of trees.

Aside from mind-bending photos of trees reflected in a shallow pond, we managed to have enough of a good time that there's talk now of making this a bi-annual event. I'm for that.