When I first came to Davis to teach in the summer of 1966, there were, I believe, 8,000 students at UC Davis and 16,000 people in the town. And Davis was flat, utterly flat, without even the artificial hills we now have as overpasses over the railroad tracks and the freeway. Brom Weber, the renowned scholar of American literature who had interviewed me at the Modern Language Association meeting in Chicago the previous December, was giving a public lecture that summer in the courtyard of Everson Hall. My wife and I had been invited to attend by Professor Celeste Wright (for many years the head of the English department and one of the campus's most eminent members).We were delighted to accept.
We arrived early and stood under the shade of one of the trees in the courtyard. As I remember, there was a circle of masonry around the tree. Celeste took me by the hand and asked me to stand on the rim. Confused, but as a very young assistant professor not about to argue with a full professor and former chair of the department, I complied. As I stood balancing on the concrete rim, Celeste said, "Welcome to the high point of Davis."
-- Peter Hays,
professor of English
