Personal Essay: The Joshua Tree

Sequoia – Kings Canyon National Park is located in eastern California in the Sierra Nevada Range west of Death Valley. It has interesting geological features that can resemble those in Yosemite National Park. It contains various geological elements that enhance its appearance and history, resulting in an interest in the park by a variety of scientists and explorers. The park contains the largest groves of giant sequoias and covers over 1300 square miles. (Harris, 2004)

Have you ever thought how you use trees? Do you use them for paper, or wood for houses, or anything else? In this paper i’m going to tell you how Early Loggers and Coastal Indians in the United States used trees back in the 1700-1800’s. Coastal Indians used trees for a variety of things, such as: housing, clothing, and transportation. Coastal Indians would carve out the middle of a large tree to make a canoe or boat, and then would go fish or hunt whales.

Most male citizens wore cowboy hats and there were hitching posts that were used regularly in front of the grocery store, cafe, dry goods store, tavern and post office. The commercial center of town was limited to the east side of Highway 30. The speed limit, which few drivers acknowledged, was thirty-five on the two-lane highway that bisected the town without so much as a stoplight. Haines had no mail delivery so we walked, drove, or rode a horse or a bicycle to the post office to get our mail from a little box with a window and a combination lock dial on its face. There were dozens of these little boxes on one wall of the post office lobby, the wall that split the building down the middle.

Last year I played basketball for the Bath team and Red Cedar team. In my last game I had 24 points, over 10 rebounds, and 5 blocks. After the game the opposing coach came up to me and asked if I wanted to join an AAU team and at the time I didn’t know what that was. He gave me his number and I learned that AAU was a league for really good basketball players.

The year was 1968, in a small town in Alabama where Joshua started his path to manhood. Joshua: Lost in a forest surrounded by strange trees. No sense of direction. Alone! There I sat under a bog tree exhausted from my attempts to get back home.

Melinda describes her tree: “My last tree looked like it had died from some fungal infection- not the effect I wanted at all” (Anderson 92).

The summer of 2016 my family and I took a road trip to Colorado. Colorado reminded me a lot of Minnesota but on a big Mountain. There are river valleys that are 1,250 feet deep to mountains that are 14,114 feet high. I climbed a mountain in Glenwood Canyon.

The name of the Hollyhock was derived from nature as it comes out that Wright drew a lot of inspiration from the surrounding environment. This is why it is seen as Wright’s greatest accomplishments (Banham, 1981). The main was to maintain the regional integrity in the manner it influences the environment. Thus, this was an opportunity for Wright to produce integral architecture suited to the climatic needs of California (Banham,

As stated by the Iroquois, “In the middle of the Sky-World there grew a Great Tree . . . The tree was not supposed to be marked or mutilated by any of the beings who dwelt in the Sky-World” (Iroquois 34). Likewise, the tree in

“One time I saw a tiny Joshua sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. ‘You’d be destroying what makes it special,’ she said.

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, the author was most influenced by her time in Midland, California, as indicated by how she describes the scenery there. In Midland her she is taught many important life lessons mostly taught to her by her parents, Rex and Mary Rose. One of the lessons she is taught in Midland was hinted at in the beginning of the book. While traveling to Midland upon arriving the family runs into the beautiful scenery and one particular tree; the Joshua tree that caught Rose Mary’s eye.

As her roots took hold she began to grown out of the ground and blossomed into a beautiful tree. In the Mid 70’s kenya natural resources began to decline. There were streams in Nyeri she had known as a child that had dried up . Farms and plantations were replacing the forest many communities depended on for nutrition and energy.

In Sarah Orne Jewett’s piece, “A White Heron”, tension is continuously built to give a sense of meaning to a young girl’s climb. Her success hinges on her ability to come to and understanding with the wise old tree, so the evolution of their relationship is dramaticized. Even at the start of the piece, the tree’s presence is felt. The author uses personification and polysyndeton to give it qualities similar to an old, wise, tired grandfather who has just encountered something that he’s never seen before. It has outlived the whole forest of “pines and oaks and maples”.

The use and function of topography in ‘Is There Nowhere Else We Can Meet?’ and ‘Burger’s Daughter’ Both ‘Is There Nowhere Else We Can Meet?’ and ‘Burger’s Daughter’ contain topography. ‘Is There Nowhere Else We Can Meet?’ portrays the antithesis between a forest and a town, whilst ‘Burger’s Daughter’ addresses the antithesis between the small public square and the big strands.

The cool, upland air, flooding through the everlasting branches of the lively tree, as it casts a vague shadow onto the grasses ' fine green. Fresh sunlight penetrates through the branches of the tree, illuminating perfect spheres of water upon its green wands. My numb and almost transparent feet are blanketed by the sweetness of the scene, as the sunlight paints my lips red, my hair ebony, and my eyes honey-like. The noon sunlight acts as a HD camera, telling no lies, in the world in which shadows of truth are the harshest, revealing every flaw in the sight, like a toddler carrying his very first camera, taking pictures of whatever he sees. My head looks down at the sight of my cold and lifeless feet, before making its way up to the reaching arms of an infatuating tree, glowing brightly virescent at the edges of the trunk, inviting a soothing, tingling sensation to my soul.