WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:08.080 This morning, with the mists still blurring the edges of 2 00:00:08.119 --> 00:00:11.640 Elgin Park, I took my customary route along the north lawn, 3 00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:14.359 feeling the particular kind of softness in the air that 4 00:00:14.480 --> 00:00:18.199 means spring is nearly here, but not quite. It's whether 5 00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:21.679 only a retired park hand could love, not yet bursting 6 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:25.600 with sunlight, but already full of small promises, green at 7 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:28.879 the tips of the hawthorns, a scatter of worm castings 8 00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:32.600 in the thawed clay bird call layered behind distant traffic. 9 00:00:33.679 --> 00:00:37.359 In these dewy, undemanding hours, I sometimes walk as if 10 00:00:37.399 --> 00:00:40.640 the park were a private garden, I somehow earned by persistence, 11 00:00:41.159 --> 00:00:45.119 decades of paid work pruning and cataloging, but also years 12 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:49.560 of my own unofficial stewardship. Even now, walking cane in 13 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:52.960 one hand, notebook jammed in my pocket, I have half 14 00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:56.039 the habits of a caretaker and half those of a wandering, 15 00:00:56.359 --> 00:01:01.000 sentimental old fool. It's hard to surprise me here. There 16 00:01:01.039 --> 00:01:04.000 are three hundred fourteen trees, by the city's last count, 17 00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:06.680 and if you ask me to describe any major one, 18 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:10.280 the great white oak on Fountain Hill, the oozing old 19 00:01:10.319 --> 00:01:13.200 black cherry by the path to the boat launch, the 20 00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:16.560 perfect Linden in the bandstand stand. I would not need 21 00:01:16.599 --> 00:01:21.760 to check my ledgers, after all, I wrote most of them. Roots, spread, 22 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.319 leafing times, signs of disease, dates of lightning strike or 23 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:29.799 storm loss. I know more birthdays and tragedies for these 24 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:33.640 trees than I do for my family. Yet here, where 25 00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.519 the gravel bends to skirt an outcrop of humous richer 26 00:01:36.599 --> 00:01:40.000 than coffee grounds, my eye caught something unfamiliar in the 27 00:01:40.040 --> 00:01:43.519 old southeast oak, a mark low enough to be missed 28 00:01:43.599 --> 00:01:46.920 except by someone watching for bark rot or burrowing insects. 29 00:01:47.400 --> 00:01:51.680 The number twenty seven, delicately carved, barely breaking the surface 30 00:01:51.719 --> 00:01:56.120 grays and browns, the lines hair fine but unmistakably intentional. 31 00:01:56.680 --> 00:01:59.920 I traced it with my index finger, as if reading brail, 32 00:02:01.079 --> 00:02:04.560 not spray painted or scrawled. No hint of the desperate 33 00:02:04.599 --> 00:02:09.520 loops of teenage vandalism, just a simple, almost shy twenty seven, 34 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:13.439 the two and the seven connected by a long, deliberate seraph, 35 00:02:13.759 --> 00:02:17.719 as if for their own private satisfaction. I pulled out 36 00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:21.199 my old pocket note book, now less for duty than nostalgia, 37 00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:24.319 and turned to my last entries for this tree. In 38 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:28.120 meticulous ballpoint, I tracked everything down to a strange gaull 39 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.400 and a lost branch after the May storm three years ago. 40 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.599 No mention of numbers, no sign of tampering or marking 41 00:02:35.719 --> 00:02:39.960 in dozens of previous checks. Still, it's always possible to 42 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:44.000 miss something. I am old enough to mistrust my own infallibility. 43 00:02:44.479 --> 00:02:47.840 But the marks were so fresh, so restrained, that I 44 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:51.560 felt a prickle of disbelief. On something of a hunch, 45 00:02:51.840 --> 00:02:54.639 I hobbled across the nearby ridge to the big sycamore, 46 00:02:54.919 --> 00:02:57.520 the one whose leaves always remind me of the palms 47 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:00.919 of open hands. There, at nearly the same height on 48 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:05.080 the pale, mottled trunk, a matching fourteen in the same 49 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:09.120 neat script. I glanced back across the green, looking for 50 00:03:09.159 --> 00:03:12.759 any sign of movement, a pranks to lurking, a graffiti 51 00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:16.400 artist with a ponchun for subtlety. Just crows and a 52 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:19.960 jogger rounding the far path. Could someone have marked these 53 00:03:19.960 --> 00:03:22.520 in the night. Could they have been here for years 54 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:27.039 waiting for me to finally see them. That's absurd, I thought, 55 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:31.439 tracing the numbers again. But absurdity, like coincidence, has more 56 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:34.520 room in the world than we admit. Still, I could 57 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:37.479 not help, but think, if I missed these, what else 58 00:03:37.479 --> 00:03:40.319 have I really seen here? That's when I decided to 59 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:43.800 spend this overcast day inspecting every tree I could reach. 60 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:47.960 In a decade past, I might have handled this discovery 61 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:51.879 with a mixture of irritation and official routine, drafting a 62 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:55.759 note for Brenda, the park's current manager, muttering about kids 63 00:03:55.759 --> 00:03:59.159 and lack of respect. To day, I felt a different energy, 64 00:03:59.400 --> 00:04:02.120 a kind of quiet exhilaration I hadn't known since the 65 00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:05.560 earliest days of my career. Before knowing everything had dulled 66 00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:08.080 me into only looking for what I expected to find. 67 00:04:08.759 --> 00:04:11.199 The world, it seemed, had left a riddle at the 68 00:04:11.199 --> 00:04:15.400 base of my oldest confidence. The park in early spring 69 00:04:15.479 --> 00:04:18.319 has many moods, and this morning it seemed to hold 70 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:22.839 its breath on my behalf. People imagine public parks as finished, 71 00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:26.879 buttoned up things, benches fixed, and gravel neat every tree, 72 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:30.639 municipal every feature logged somewhere in a city record. But 73 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:33.639 if you spend years truly working a place like Elgin Park, 74 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:36.680 you know it as a collection of layers, living history 75 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:40.120 pinned to the earth, with plenty of deep, unmapped spaces 76 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:44.079 between even the best kept files. It's wide, but never shallow. 77 00:04:44.519 --> 00:04:48.120 The roots run both forwards and backward, sometimes crossing in 78 00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:52.000 the dark. When I started here at eighteen, I shadowed 79 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.519 the old groundskeeper, Miss Clara, who used to tell me 80 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:58.480 a good groundskeeper always leaves two unrecorded facts for the 81 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:02.040 tree's sake. It sounded cryptic. May be her way of 82 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:05.519 making the job feel grander, but somehow it's stuck. I 83 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:09.319 gathered data obsessively, not just standard notes, but my own 84 00:05:09.399 --> 00:05:12.680 ledgers of squirrel nests, whether who fed the ducks or 85 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:17.000 which kids invented myths about the twisted maple. Even then, 86 00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:19.920 Elgin was not just a sum of plants and pavilions, 87 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:24.639 but a living place stitched together by thousands of untraceable moments. 88 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:28.800 I felt responsible for them all to day. The park 89 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:32.560 is watched over by Brenda, a practical, efficient manager, as 90 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:36.040 brisk as a silver bob. She likes things tidy, no 91 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:40.480 mysterious art projects, no nuisances. Her first instinct is to 92 00:05:40.519 --> 00:05:43.040 file a complaint form if the grass gets too long, 93 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:45.800 but her heart's in the right place. We have an 94 00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:49.480 unspoken agreement. I play the old uncle. She humors my 95 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:52.079 rituals as long as I don't slow up the work crew. 96 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:56.480 There's also mister Patel, who arrives at eight thirty every 97 00:05:56.519 --> 00:06:01.240 morning chessboard under arm. A retired accountant the fondness for gossip. 98 00:06:01.519 --> 00:06:04.399 He's as much a fixture as the park benches. He 99 00:06:04.480 --> 00:06:07.720 insists he remembers the park before half the oaks were planted, 100 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:11.399 but on rainy days he forgets his own birthday. The 101 00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:15.399 children call him the King, mostly because he's thrice outwitted 102 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:20.040 a city councilor in rook exchanges. And then there s Lucy, 103 00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:23.800 a regular for the past three years sixteen, full of 104 00:06:23.839 --> 00:06:28.120 restless curiosity, binoculars dangling, and a battered bird book poking 105 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:30.800 from her hoodie. She talks to every one like their 106 00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:35.279 a possible collaborator, but believes most things are fundamentally unremarkable 107 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:40.079 until proven otherwise. She's always tracking down odd birds, charting 108 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:46.120 their migration patterns with methodical, self sufficient skepticism. Birds, not trees, 109 00:06:46.399 --> 00:06:49.560 are her obsession, but she's noticed plenty in the woods, 110 00:06:49.639 --> 00:06:54.079 others overlook walking among these people, I sometimes feel I 111 00:06:54.079 --> 00:06:57.240 am just one layer among many, another regular feature of 112 00:06:57.279 --> 00:07:02.079 the landscape, only sometimes noticed. The park itself, though technically 113 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:05.920 planned and mapped by various architects since the late eighteen nineties. 114 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:09.480 Is an erratic quilt old growth mixed with sudden new 115 00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:13.439 plantings from grant funded projects. Stands of Linden carved out 116 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:17.879 by playground expansions, the odd ancient apple whose origins nobody 117 00:07:17.879 --> 00:07:22.600 can exactly place. Every map is half fiction. The oldest 118 00:07:22.639 --> 00:07:25.879 records are partial and often wrong, but no one seems 119 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:29.120 to mind. We fill the gaps with jokes and stories. 120 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:33.759 There have always been oddities, stray bricks where walls were raised, 121 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:37.879 holes once meant for lamp posts, and since overgrown, rumors 122 00:07:37.879 --> 00:07:41.600 of a secret garden predating the city itself. My own 123 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:44.560 ledgers are detailed, yes, but each year brings at least 124 00:07:44.600 --> 00:07:49.199 a few miscellaneous entries, detailing mushrooms in January, or the 125 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:52.759 peculiar flash of a fox weaving through forgotten underbrush where 126 00:07:52.759 --> 00:07:56.519 no fox should be now in the cool light of 127 00:07:56.560 --> 00:08:00.199 this uncertain morning. These numbers have upstaged every oddity I've 128 00:08:00.240 --> 00:08:05.759 cataloged and engraved fourteen and twenty seven, but more a 129 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:08.720 suggestion that the true map of Elgin Park isn't the 130 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:11.680 one filed in the manager's office, but the one written 131 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:15.879 unnoticed by human hand, by time, or perhaps by something 132 00:08:15.920 --> 00:08:20.240 altogether stranger. When I met Brenda by her office, I 133 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:23.600 kept my tone light. Did you authorize a new tree 134 00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:27.360 survey and forget to put me on the memo survey? 135 00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:30.720 She asked, peering over glasses that always seemed to be 136 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:35.000 half way down her nose. These, I said, showing her 137 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:37.799 a photo from my phone of the marked oak and sycamore. 138 00:08:38.759 --> 00:08:43.039 She shrugged, unimpressed. It's kids with penknives. Do you know 139 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.919 how many times I've had the rec center reaping the benches. 140 00:08:46.279 --> 00:08:50.679 We'll sand off the marks, No trouble, It's not just graffiti, 141 00:08:50.919 --> 00:08:54.759 I pressed, it's I trailed off, Unsure how to phrase 142 00:08:54.879 --> 00:08:58.080 my suspicion without sounding like the very kind of eccentric. 143 00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:04.120 Brenda delighted in gently ignoring. It's careful. She narrowed her eyes, 144 00:09:04.279 --> 00:09:07.879 scanning my face for a beat, then softened. If you want, 145 00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:11.639 I'll log it as minor vandalism. Just don't go drilling 146 00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:16.320 holes in anything rare. Later, as I set about inspecting trees, 147 00:09:16.639 --> 00:09:19.360 I told my find to mister Patel between his third 148 00:09:19.399 --> 00:09:22.759 and fourth games. He smiled with a mix of mischief 149 00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:27.000 and condescension. Oh yes, I remember, long ago the city 150 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:30.559 marked the oldest trees for record keeping. I think you 151 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:33.759 must have missed it. They choose discreet places, not for 152 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:38.159 the public. But these marks I counted were certainly not 153 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:41.240 here twenty years ago, at least not on that old oak. 154 00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:46.399 I'd have noticed. Memory is a funny thing, friend. Most 155 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:49.480 things have been here longer than we remember, even me. 156 00:09:50.159 --> 00:09:53.480 He grinned, then turned his attention back to the checkered board, 157 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:58.639 unwilling to upset the game in favor of my little puzzle. Meanwhile, 158 00:09:58.759 --> 00:10:01.600 Lucy happened upon me so scrutinizing a linden near the 159 00:10:01.679 --> 00:10:05.240 duck pond, her binoculars swinging as she ducked to my level. 160 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:09.960 You find something, she asked. I pointed out a faint 161 00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:14.320 thirty four, almost lost in a crevice. Ever see these before? 162 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:18.960 She leaned in, then shook her head. No, weird. They're 163 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:22.080 not obvious, though, are they. Somebody's got a steady hand, 164 00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:25.559 and it can't be new kids. Nobody sneaks around carving 165 00:10:25.639 --> 00:10:29.960 numbers these days. Everyone's too busy filming things. Are there more? 166 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:34.639 I don't know yet, I admitted. If you need another 167 00:10:34.679 --> 00:10:38.159 set of eyes, I'll be around. The crows are boring 168 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:41.639 to day. With that I was no closer to an answer. 169 00:10:42.200 --> 00:10:46.320 Brenda dismissed the intrigue. Mister Patel insisted the marks predated 170 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:50.480 even his memory, but shrugged off details. And Lucy's uncertainty 171 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:53.639 seemed to match my own. A puzzle had surfaced where 172 00:10:53.639 --> 00:10:58.000 before there was only settled ground. Disagreement shimmered in the air, 173 00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:02.720 as if the marks themselves are tracted contradiction. By mid day, 174 00:11:02.840 --> 00:11:05.519 my walk had become a mission, not yet a crusade, 175 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:09.480 but with an unmistakable sense of urgency. I took inventory, 176 00:11:09.759 --> 00:11:13.039 checking every promising bowl and low limb, ignoring the odd 177 00:11:13.080 --> 00:11:16.200 looks from lunch time strollers. Eight trees in all by 178 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:19.799 that afternoon, spread across the length of the park, a linden, 179 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:23.039 a pair of maples near the placecape, two old ashes 180 00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:26.679 by the maintenance shed, the venerable oak and the massive sycamore, 181 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:29.960 and a chickasaw plum rising shyly from a weedy bank. 182 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:34.759 Each bore a discrete single or double digit number, always 183 00:11:34.799 --> 00:11:39.000 in the same script. None in sequence here, though, was 184 00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:42.279 what truly put the matter past coincidence. The spread of 185 00:11:42.360 --> 00:11:46.279 marks seemed to me utterly erratic. One tree shaded a 186 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:50.159 main avenue easily accessible to any one on foot. Others 187 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:52.840 grew in places so minor or awkward that no child 188 00:11:52.919 --> 00:11:55.960 or prankster would have bothered, not without risking a slide 189 00:11:55.960 --> 00:11:59.279 in sod or a hornet's nest for their trouble. If 190 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:02.360 this was van, it was done with a patience and 191 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:06.960 restraint rarely seen in juvenile hyjinks. On a hunch, I 192 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:10.840 cross checked last year's maintenance records. No mention of marking 193 00:12:10.879 --> 00:12:14.080 trees for felling or disease, No such numbers linked to 194 00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:17.320 city inspections, nor any routine reason to mark a healthy 195 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:20.879 decades old Linden in the shade of an unused swing set. 196 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:25.279 Even my own charts, preserved in dusty binders dating back 197 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:28.759 to my first seasons, displayed no hint or memory of 198 00:12:28.840 --> 00:12:34.279 numeration formal or otherwise. Between my discoveries, I ran into 199 00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:37.519 Lucy again. She'd abandoned her bird count to quiz me 200 00:12:37.639 --> 00:12:41.720 about what I'd found. How many now, she asked, jotting 201 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:44.080 notes on her phone as I listed off each tree 202 00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:48.799 in number. When I described the unlikely distribution, she frowned 203 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:51.759 in concentration. Some of these don't match up with the 204 00:12:51.799 --> 00:12:55.080 obvious spots, and you'd notice if someone knew was poking 205 00:12:55.080 --> 00:12:58.879 around those. Right the path by the creeks always swampy 206 00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:02.879 in spring, Nobodies crawling through that for a prank, unless 207 00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:08.080 her voice trailed off, lost in consideration. Meanwhile, I caught 208 00:13:08.120 --> 00:13:11.919 Brenda after lunch, presenting my growing catalog and asking for 209 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:15.320 any known historical surveys or city programs that might explain 210 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:18.320 the numbering. She gave it all a business like once over. 211 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:22.039 If it's old, someone would have logged it somewhere old 212 00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:25.720 survey maybe, But it's not ours, she promised to ask 213 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:29.120 the park's department archivist. Though I could feel her tolerance 214 00:13:29.159 --> 00:13:32.600 for my mysteries wearing thin with every additional tree. I 215 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:37.279 nagged her about mister Patel overhearing our chat piped up 216 00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:40.679 as I passed him later that day. You know, my friend, 217 00:13:40.919 --> 00:13:44.159 he declared, Sometimes these things are simple as can be. 218 00:13:44.799 --> 00:13:48.039 There is no secret, just someone with too much time 219 00:13:48.279 --> 00:13:51.519 making a pattern for themselves. The world doesn't always need 220 00:13:51.559 --> 00:13:57.080 a story. Lucy, hearing this, rolled her eyes. Everything eskot 221 00:13:57.080 --> 00:14:00.360 a story, most of them just haven't been noticed yet. 222 00:14:01.159 --> 00:14:04.759 Walking home, I found myself turning both perspectives over in 223 00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:08.720 my mind. A too simple explanation. A mere prank or 224 00:14:08.759 --> 00:14:12.279 old project didn't fit the evidence, But neither did any 225 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:15.840 clear or alternative. Perhaps the only thing more common than 226 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:20.960 the overlooked is the outright forgotten. But these numbers, so precise, 227 00:14:21.240 --> 00:14:24.840 so unheralded, pressed at the seams of sense, denying the 228 00:14:24.879 --> 00:14:28.080 comfort of old routines and opening the door to something 229 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:32.840 numinous and frankly exciting. The park, usually the domain of 230 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:37.360 the familiar, had quietly upended itself. Determined to make a 231 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:41.039 thorough accounting, I borrowed Lucy's eyes for the following morning. 232 00:14:41.559 --> 00:14:45.320 We spent nearly four hours scouring every quadrant, her with 233 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:49.120 her sharp peripheral vision, me with my well ingrained memory 234 00:14:49.159 --> 00:14:52.440 of every knot and bulge. At the day's end, we'd 235 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:56.120 cataloged twenty three trees, each marked by hand, each with 236 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:59.679 a unique number, none higher than forty one, None repeated, 237 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:03.159 stept curiously for seventeen, which we found both on an 238 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:06.000 ancient storm blighted beach at the northeast edge and on 239 00:15:06.039 --> 00:15:08.879 a much younger maple half way across the park. They 240 00:15:08.919 --> 00:15:11.519 were not near each other. When I pointed this out, 241 00:15:11.600 --> 00:15:15.559 Lucy squinted, weird that it's the same number, maybe those 242 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:20.120 types of trees, she shrugged, not satisfied. Back home, I 243 00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:22.720 sat at my kitchen table with the full list, trying 244 00:15:22.759 --> 00:15:27.840 to spot a system, chronology, species, age, accessibility, any plausible clue. 245 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:35.600 The numbers skipped and scattered two, six, seven, ten, eleven, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, twice, nineteen, 246 00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:39.000 twenty one, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty seven, 247 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:42.639 twenty nine, thirty one, thirty three, thirty four, thirty five, 248 00:15:42.799 --> 00:15:47.279 thirty six, thirty eight, forty one, a distribution so wide 249 00:15:47.519 --> 00:15:50.559 and unpatterned at first that I could almost convince myself 250 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:54.080 it was arbitrary, but small anomalies pricked at me. The 251 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:57.039 same style of engraving on twenty year old and century 252 00:15:57.080 --> 00:16:01.000 old trees identical, even accounting for barkhe thickness, and growth. 253 00:16:01.639 --> 00:16:05.559 The marks were faintest and surely oldest on the sycamores 254 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:09.200 and beach, but even the newest seemed aged by honest weather. 255 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:13.399 I mapped each numbered trees position in the park from memory, 256 00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:18.360 sketching rough lines and clusters, expecting chaos. I found lines, 257 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:23.200 some straight, others gently curving, echoing major paths. In a 258 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:27.799 few places, trees of consecutive numbers clustered in unexpected alignments, 259 00:16:28.039 --> 00:16:32.240 as if making a statement in the layout. Two seventeen 260 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:36.559 s on different species, separated by almost five hundred yards 261 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:40.799 posed the biggest contradiction. No city surveyor or gardener would 262 00:16:40.840 --> 00:16:44.840 mark separate species decades apart with matching numbers on purpose, 263 00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:48.519 unless it was a code, or a joke, or something 264 00:16:48.559 --> 00:16:53.360 altogether else, some system with rules unknown to me. Wanting 265 00:16:53.440 --> 00:16:56.519 no gaps in my knowledge, I checked my oldest records 266 00:16:56.519 --> 00:17:00.399 and the city's digitized archives. There was no tradition, recent 267 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:04.559 or historic, of numbering living trees for reference, not publicly, 268 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:07.720 and not in these places. I even called the city's 269 00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:11.920 park's historian, but she found nothing. Plenty of early taggings 270 00:17:11.920 --> 00:17:15.359 for orchard trials, but not in city parks, and certainly 271 00:17:15.400 --> 00:17:19.640 nothing matching these numbers or style. Next, I led both 272 00:17:19.680 --> 00:17:22.720 Brenda and Lucy on a walking tour of the numbered trees, 273 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:28.279 carefully noting their reactions. Brenda was patient but unimpressed. Lucy's 274 00:17:28.279 --> 00:17:31.119 brow furrowed as she realized that some trees near the 275 00:17:31.160 --> 00:17:35.559 overgrown Sledding Hill had always felt familiar, while others, she swore, 276 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:41.039 had never shown marks before. Our memories snubbed comfort, diverging wildly. 277 00:17:42.119 --> 00:17:45.359 Some trees, Brenda insisted, must have been marked in the 278 00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:50.640 late nineties, when pester Batement brought outside contractors. Lucy said 279 00:17:50.839 --> 00:17:53.720 she spent hours bird watching beside three of the marked 280 00:17:53.759 --> 00:17:56.799 trees every spring, and never saw so much as a 281 00:17:56.880 --> 00:18:01.400 scratch until this week. There was no census, only a 282 00:18:01.400 --> 00:18:05.240 growing uncertainty in our collective memory. Yet the layout drew 283 00:18:05.279 --> 00:18:09.519 me onward. Each step closer to understanding revealed how fragile 284 00:18:09.559 --> 00:18:12.680 my grasp had been. I'd prided myself on years of 285 00:18:12.759 --> 00:18:17.480 faithful documentation, and now I feared some elusive principle operated 286 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:22.240 in plain sight, shaming my powers of observation. By the 287 00:18:22.240 --> 00:18:25.640 week's end, I'd assembled a map of all twenty three trees, 288 00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:30.000 marking number, species, and rough coordinates. I pinned it up 289 00:18:30.039 --> 00:18:33.240 in the park office, then sat alone, staring at the 290 00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:37.319 tangle of lines and numbers until my mind blurred with possibilities. 291 00:18:37.880 --> 00:18:41.839 If there was meaning here, it seemed beautifully tantalizingly hidden. 292 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:47.200 Abandoning guesswork, I decided to enlist the help of a friend, Carson, 293 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:50.880 a retired architect with a hobbyist's eye for geometry and mapping. 294 00:18:51.319 --> 00:18:54.440 We met one Saturday map spread across the kitchen table, 295 00:18:54.720 --> 00:18:59.400 GPS in hand. Carson was a genial sort slow to judge. 296 00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:03.279 A patient listener whose hobby had become devouring city blueprints 297 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:06.440 for fun, he offered to plot my coordinates on a laptop, 298 00:19:06.720 --> 00:19:09.599 overlaying them on the current geese layer for Elgin Park. 299 00:19:10.720 --> 00:19:14.960 With painstaking care, we entered every tree's position. Give me 300 00:19:15.039 --> 00:19:18.079 those numbers again, he asked, typing them out in the 301 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:21.720 order of sighting. When the last coordinates snapped into place, 302 00:19:21.960 --> 00:19:26.359 he sat back, whistling under his breath. That's not random, 303 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:30.000 he declared, the odds of this. What Lucy, she's the 304 00:19:30.079 --> 00:19:33.720 math kid, she'd love this. Look here, He drew a 305 00:19:33.720 --> 00:19:38.440 digital straight line through five trees marked seven eleven, seventeen, 306 00:19:38.720 --> 00:19:42.440 twenty three, twenty nine, not a jot off. Each was 307 00:19:42.519 --> 00:19:46.279 evenly spaced nearly to the inch across nearly seventy meters, 308 00:19:46.559 --> 00:19:50.839 following no existing paved trail, but slicing crosswise through stands 309 00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:55.440 old and new. I stared, heart hammering with pleasure and confusion. 310 00:19:55.880 --> 00:20:00.119 The numbers were all prime, increasing by exactly four, six, six, 311 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:04.039 and six. How could I couldn't finish? The thought? These 312 00:20:04.079 --> 00:20:07.880 particular primes lined up made no sense. In regular city planting, 313 00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:11.839 trees are planted for shade, soil, or convenience, not in 314 00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:16.839 arithmetic sequences. But Carson wasn't finished. Now look at this. 315 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:20.319 He swung a virtual protractor in a wide arc, connecting 316 00:20:20.359 --> 00:20:24.000 three others two, six, ten. The trees wound in a 317 00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:27.920 smooth curved line, hugging the edge of the creek. Use 318 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:31.920 the points as centers. It's almost a continuous geometric progression. 319 00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:35.559 Carson murmured, like someone took a compass and walked out 320 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:39.519 from the water's edge at planned intervals. I scribbled in 321 00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:43.359 my note book a half incoherent frenzy of possible connections. 322 00:20:43.799 --> 00:20:48.119 The prime line the curved progression neither was a feature 323 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:51.440 of city planning, nor even as far as I could imagine, 324 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:54.359 a practical joke. And if this was the work of 325 00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:57.759 a subversive mind, it was one that operated in stealth 326 00:20:57.759 --> 00:21:02.119 and patience over a span of decades. The peculiar repetition 327 00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:06.440 of seventeen on both an aged beach and a sapling maple, 328 00:21:06.799 --> 00:21:12.119 unconnected by geometry, suggested some deeper rule, neither random nor mechanical. 329 00:21:13.160 --> 00:21:16.079 That evening I gathered Brenda and Lucy at the bandstand 330 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:21.039 to show them Carson's findings. Brenda scanned the plot, eyebrows raised. 331 00:21:21.559 --> 00:21:24.279 It doesn't matter how neat the lines are, it's still 332 00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:31.920 marking trees without permission. Maybe someone over zealous mathematician got bored. Lucy, 333 00:21:32.039 --> 00:21:35.480 by contrast, was energized. I need to borrow this map 334 00:21:35.559 --> 00:21:39.039 for school. Mister Edelman, my math teacher, will freak out. 335 00:21:39.480 --> 00:21:42.559 He's obsessed with number patterns. Can I take a copy? 336 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:46.720 Of course, I said, my breath coming faster than i'd 337 00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:50.359 like to admit. Show him, see what he thinks. Maybe 338 00:21:50.440 --> 00:21:54.400 we're missing something obvious. Lucy took the print out and 339 00:21:54.519 --> 00:21:59.319 bounced away, phone already dialing. Before I went home. I 340 00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:02.079 stood in the evening light beside the creek, looking back 341 00:22:02.119 --> 00:22:04.920 at the long line of prime numbered trees, their limbs 342 00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.440 extending like hands, counting in silence. The curiosity had become sharper. 343 00:22:09.880 --> 00:22:13.200 These numbers and alignments were not decorative nor symbolic in 344 00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:16.440 any tradition I had known. The sense of ordinary oddity 345 00:22:16.519 --> 00:22:20.319 had given way to something stranger, unaccounted for. I wondered 346 00:22:20.759 --> 00:22:24.359 what system, what mind, or what impulse could overlay such 347 00:22:24.400 --> 00:22:29.839 a pattern in silence, generation after generation. The logic was clear, 348 00:22:30.240 --> 00:22:32.759 but the source was absent, as if some one had 349 00:22:32.839 --> 00:22:35.759 drawn a perfect circle in the middle of chaos then 350 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:40.519 hidden their compass. I slept badly, dreaming not of trees, 351 00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:44.440 but of grids and spirals, of numbers walking through groves, 352 00:22:44.799 --> 00:22:48.960 planting themselves in perfect order. Lucy arranged for me to 353 00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:52.720 visit her math class the following week. I arrived early, 354 00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:56.680 briefed mister Edelman in advance, and watched his expression more 355 00:22:56.759 --> 00:23:00.720 from polite curiosity to open astonishment as he traced the 356 00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:04.920 lines with his finger. Whoever made this design, he said, 357 00:23:05.079 --> 00:23:08.240 drawing the class's focus, knew more than high school math. 358 00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:12.119 These aren't just pretty lines, They're mathematical objects. Here you 359 00:23:12.240 --> 00:23:16.039 see this cluster he highlighted, twenty five, twenty nine, thirty three, 360 00:23:16.200 --> 00:23:19.319 thirty five. It's a Fibonacci spiral. If you plot the 361 00:23:19.400 --> 00:23:25.359 increments and this arc two six ten geometric shore, he paused, 362 00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:29.359 flipping through his mental database, you have repetition of seventeen, 363 00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:32.720 which isn't standard. But if you lay the numbers by species, 364 00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:36.559 see here he assigned colors on a whiteboard, tracking genus 365 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:40.759 in age the outlier trees where sequence breaks or repeats 366 00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:44.920 actually fill missing pieces in each progression on paper. It's 367 00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:47.960 as if someone wanted to ensure no sequence when unfinished, 368 00:23:48.279 --> 00:23:53.200 even when the logic jumps species, age, or geography. Lucy's 369 00:23:53.279 --> 00:23:57.359 classmates crowded around the projection. Someone asked if the city 370 00:23:57.440 --> 00:24:02.400 had designed it this way for educational purposes. I can guarantee, 371 00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:05.839 I said, there was no such project during my tenure, 372 00:24:06.359 --> 00:24:09.400 and by the age estimates, some of these trees predate 373 00:24:09.559 --> 00:24:14.519 even the earliest planting maps. After class, mister Edelman cornered 374 00:24:14.559 --> 00:24:17.160 me at the board, have you talked with a botanist 375 00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:20.440 or a city planner. This is not typical, not at all. 376 00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:24.119 It reminds me of some work in mathematical ecology. But 377 00:24:24.240 --> 00:24:27.480 the precision, he shook his head. If you want, I 378 00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:30.519 can look at it deeper, may be run. Some simulations 379 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:34.960 be my guest, I replied, feeling the curious mix of 380 00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:38.759 elation and anxiety that comes when your mystery grows deeper 381 00:24:38.799 --> 00:24:44.319 the longer you look. Lucy's enthusiasm became infectious. She organized 382 00:24:44.359 --> 00:24:48.720 a park pattern walk for her friends, all scribbling observations 383 00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:53.880 in notepads, mapping tree ages and species bubbling with amateur conjectures. 384 00:24:54.920 --> 00:24:57.960 To take the inquiry further, I met with Miss Becker, 385 00:24:58.279 --> 00:25:01.440 the now retired botanist who around the park's department in 386 00:25:01.519 --> 00:25:05.079 the nineties. We sat in a compact apartment over tea 387 00:25:05.519 --> 00:25:10.000 poring over her ancient field books. These numbers don't match 388 00:25:10.079 --> 00:25:13.440 any survey or diseased tags I've seen, not even in 389 00:25:13.559 --> 00:25:18.599 trial orchards, She mused. What about growth or age? I asked. 390 00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:23.759 She flipped through her records, cross referencing tree species, planting dates, 391 00:25:24.039 --> 00:25:27.640 and the narrow city budgets for public plantings. Your numbered 392 00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:31.200 trees run from pre war survivors to twenty year old upstarts, 393 00:25:31.599 --> 00:25:35.160 not contiguous by age, not by city plantings. Some are 394 00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:37.920 from wild stock, not supposed to be here at all. 395 00:25:38.599 --> 00:25:42.480 The chances of this exact distribution planned by humans are 396 00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:46.839 vanishingly small. Back at home, I dug out the oldest 397 00:25:46.880 --> 00:25:50.079 planting chart in the park's archive, yellowed vellum from the 398 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:54.400 nineteen thirties, its ink faded to the brown of autumn layering. 399 00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:57.680 A photocopied transparency of my current numbered tree map over 400 00:25:57.720 --> 00:26:01.440 the past plan I saw start that at least half 401 00:26:01.519 --> 00:26:04.559