Vandusen

Many years ago, my elementary grade class went to the VanDusen Botanical Garden for a field trip. My Austrian friend Danny K. was with us. We marvelled at the biology. I collected yellow leaves from the Ginkgo biloba trees there. The leaves had a strange shape. Later, I put some of the yellow leaves in a book about horror movies with Frankenstein on the cover. Years later, in high school, during silent reading class, I showed Danny one of the yellow leaves pressed in the pages of my book about horror movies. With sudden anguish, Danny crumpled the yellow leaf in his hand, as if his mind started racing.