"It smells like Putah Creek in Davis."

ON THE SCENT While in San Antonio for a conference recently, some friends and I were having dinner and discussing the most popular place in the city, the Riverwalk. One woman in our party remarked: "It's so crowded, and it smells like Putah Creek in Davis." She looked at me as she said it, for earlier in the evening we had discovered we'd both spent time in Davis, though during different periods. In fact, while walking that morning, when the Riverwalk was pleasantly unpopulated, I had recognized the similarity between the San Antonio tourist attraction and Davis' Putah Creek, but now I was embarrassed to admit that the familiar aroma was a pleasant reminder of my many walks through the UC Davis Arboretum. But it's no wonder that smell brings pleasant memories, for it also reminds me of my dog, Gerty, a Chesapeake Bay retriever who swims whenever she can; as a result, she emits that pungent creek odor a good deal of the time. She and I walked often along Putah Creek during my last year in Davis, and she had occasionally plunged into the water, especially on very hot days. Despite her hunting dog lineage, she was always more concerned with sticks or rocks than ducks or geese, and she blissfully ignored the warning honks usually emitted by the biggest goose in the pack. Our favorite time to travel the path that winds out toward the stables was early Sunday mornings, when we would find the entire campus deserted, and we would walk a huge loop that left the creek trail at its western end and took us back across the campus past many of our favorite spots: the hog barns, where Gerty would jump sideways with fright if, preoccupied, she walked too close to a pen containing a huge hog staring at her through the fence; the fountain in front of the recently completed engineering building, where she would bite at the water as it rose miraculously out of the concrete courtyard; the playing fields around the Rec Hall, where warm mornings promised sprinklers and yet another opportunity for Gerty to soak herself in a cool spray; the eucalyptus grove that led back into the heart of the central campus, where, unlike weekdays, we could stroll down the streets without even looking for oncoming bikes. Now we stroll another campus on Sunday mornings, in that exotic place called Texas. Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches also has a creek that runs along an arboretum, not comparable in size to the one in Davis, but beautiful nonetheless. We watch the flowers bloom as we did on those hikes along Putah Creek; the humidity here lends itself to hothouse varieties, so huge magnolias and heavenly gardenias lade the deep green trees and bushes. Carefully tended flower beds and a zigzag platform built across a swampy area called "The Bog" remind me that some students earn their education with their hands. Redbuds still provide the first hope of spring. Gerty swims in the creek and chases sticks, her immutable routines suggesting that in the midst of change, I can find comforting constants. Even though my field is English, I seem to gravitate toward schools that have close ties to the land; at Davis, of course, agricultural studies set the earthy tone for the campus, while at Stephen F. Austin, a large forestry department grounds us in this region known as the Piney Woods. The anchoring to the soil suits me; higher education can't get too high when odoriferous reminders of terra firma abound, be they in vast tomato fields, among towering pines or even in the pungent odor of a creek. -- Jacky O'Connor, Ph.D. '93