IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT......

Growing up in rural Castro Valley in the 1940’s and 50’s was a lot of fun. Bike riding until after dark, flying kites, exploring the creek in Johnson’s lot, and with patient parents creating endless backyard projects. But I also recall laying in bed on stormy nights terrified by the sound of the branches and limbs falling on to the roof from the eucalyptus trees looming over our bedroom. Planted for privacy along the property line with our neighbor and also intended as windbreaks, the fast growing trees quickly became towering monsters to us little boys, swaying wildly in the wind spewing limbs and bark and lit by flashes of lightning in the ink black sky threatening to come crashing through the roof at any moment.

Eucalyptus seeds were brought to the California from Australia during the gold rush in the 1850’s as a future source of wood for construction and fuel in the states mostly grassy and scrubby landscape. It only took a couple decades to learn that eucalyptus’s exceptionally hard wood that split and cracked easily was unusable for construction or for woodworking. Quick growing groves of the alien nuisance were also extraordinarily thirsty draining wells and leaving land useless for planting. The tomato’s and corn that flourished in our backyard just a few years earlier became impossible to grow in the nutrient drained soil under trees that were gaining four to six feet in height a year and were constantly dropping bark, branches, leaves and seeds. 

Some how we survived those stormy nights and in recent years we have learned that eucalyptus trees are exceedingly prone to fire and have led to some very destructive and deadly wildfires. Yikes, If I had known that 75 years ago I would have never gotten any sleep!    -Bill