Monday, August 16, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Mission blue butterfly
I thought some of you might be interested to know that the mission blue butterfly has returned to San Francisco. SFgate article here. Manzanitas and butterflies. Now for some frogs.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Coda: an SF native manzanita rediscovered at the Presidio.
Late this fall "a native San Francisco manzanita bush believed to be extinct in the wild for more than 60 years was discovered in the Presidio (SFGate:)." The Franciscan manzanita's supposed disappearance roughly coincided with the time Harold lived here on this earth. I think Harold's spirit found it and sent it back to us. A coda to his last year, a consolation, and a prospect of a good year to come.
More about the plant here and here.
Unless someone has photographs of the memorial that they'd like to share--which would be nice--this post officially retires the Harold Update blog.
More about the plant here and here.Unless someone has photographs of the memorial that they'd like to share--which would be nice--this post officially retires the Harold Update blog.
Peace and all good
Photo: Charles Webber © California Academy of Sciences
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Memorial
Hello folks,
Here's a reminder about Harold's memorial on Saturday:
Saturday the 28th of November, 2pm
Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (in Kensington)
1 Lawson Road, Kensington CA 94707
Directions are found at http://uucb.org/directions.html
(google/mapquest, etc. are unreliable for this location)
Peace.
Here's a reminder about Harold's memorial on Saturday:
Saturday the 28th of November, 2pm
Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (in Kensington)
1 Lawson Road, Kensington CA 94707
Directions are found at http://uucb.org/directions.html
(google/mapquest, etc. are unreliable for this location)
Peace.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Harold remembered in the Berkeley Daily Planet
As many of you will know, a remembrance of Harold was published this week in the Berkeley Daily Planet, written by Matt Cantor. It is online here, copied below.
The Planet needs your help. Give to the Fund for Local Reporting!
Our dear friend Harold Mark Murphree died in his sleep in the early morning of Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009, at the age of 60, after a night of warm banter with close friends. We are all deeply grieved at this profound loss.
Who, now, will cite forgotten Macedonian military strategy, local rhyolite formations or examine Second Dynasty Egyptian mummification rites?
Who will move great boulders by hand, restoring streams, assaulting them with geometry and bodily sinew?
Who will carry 18 buckets of tadpoles in the bed of his Ford F1 so that tiny croaking sounds might break the evening silence?
Who will witness the mighty Epipactis gigantea as it struggles against the over-full blue recycling tote?
Who will argue the validity of determining electron location or the root causes of H1N1?
In his absence, who will build the canted stone wall that enfolds the secret garden, mortaring tiny chinks in place to create the sublime, the overwhelming beauty?
Who will read our articles or poems with such care, noticing the tiniest and most personal particle of voice, turning the leaf and noting the lowly creature beneath? Who is left to do that?
And who will tell small and epic stories to Rose? To Sierra? And to all of us?
Harold M. Murphree was the son of Harold C. Murphree, a U.S. Army neurosurgeon, who moved with his family many times over the course of a military career. Harold C. died in 2006, and was blessedly not forced to experience his son’s untimely death at the hands of multiple myeloma and a health care system that does not care or do enough.
There is something elegantly poetic about Harold being related to Daniel Boone on his mother’s side, Emilee Boone Murphree of Ashland, Ore., a city which Harold observed was “too much powdered sugar.” He was like that. Hyperbolic, absurd or very serious.
His daughter Sierra recalled Harold filling his lungs with helium to perform from Huckleberry Finn during her childhood. He was the same in recent years. Always entertaining in his droll, falsely serious persona of scientist, raconteur. Often he was simply an attendant ear to his many close friends.
Harold began college at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., but came to Berkeley (lucky for us) in the late ’60s. Though he never earned a degree, he would doubtless have made an outstanding teacher in any of several fields, having read deeply and relentlessly through his adult life and with little fear of complexity.
Harold leaves behind too many loving friends and intimates to mention, but here is something of a list. His siblings, from eldest to youngest are Gwyn Bissel of Napa, Terry Littleton of Ashland, Ore. (cue Harold!), Tom Murphree of Monterey, Eric Murphree of Albuquerque, N.M., Carl Murphree of Marshall, Mo. and Phil Murphree of Gillette, Wyo. He is survived by his mother and the mothers of his two daughters: Rosemary, who lives locally and is mother to Sierra (34), and Jackie Gamble, mother to Rose Ines Murphree Gamble (13). Our thoughts are constantly with these two young women.
He is also survived by his friends, Emmy, Phil, Lorna, Mark, Richard, Karl, Matt, Martin, Glen, Natalie, John and all the faithful at the Vine Street Peet’s and around Berkeley, as well as dozens of garden owners, homeowners, and others who benefitted and continue to benefit from his skill. We also wish to mention Don and Tracy Flory, Gigi Gamble, Joan Monheit, Margie Cohen, Sharon and Ben Ruffman-Cohen, Cate, Tom and Este.
He will be deeply missed and never forgotten while we are alive to kindle these flames.
News:
Remembering Harold Murphree
By Matt Cantor
Thursday October 29, 2009
Harold Murphree
Our dear friend Harold Mark Murphree died in his sleep in the early morning of Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009, at the age of 60, after a night of warm banter with close friends. We are all deeply grieved at this profound loss.
Who, now, will cite forgotten Macedonian military strategy, local rhyolite formations or examine Second Dynasty Egyptian mummification rites?
Who will move great boulders by hand, restoring streams, assaulting them with geometry and bodily sinew?
Who will carry 18 buckets of tadpoles in the bed of his Ford F1 so that tiny croaking sounds might break the evening silence?
Who will witness the mighty Epipactis gigantea as it struggles against the over-full blue recycling tote?
Who will argue the validity of determining electron location or the root causes of H1N1?
In his absence, who will build the canted stone wall that enfolds the secret garden, mortaring tiny chinks in place to create the sublime, the overwhelming beauty?
Who will read our articles or poems with such care, noticing the tiniest and most personal particle of voice, turning the leaf and noting the lowly creature beneath? Who is left to do that?
And who will tell small and epic stories to Rose? To Sierra? And to all of us?
Harold M. Murphree was the son of Harold C. Murphree, a U.S. Army neurosurgeon, who moved with his family many times over the course of a military career. Harold C. died in 2006, and was blessedly not forced to experience his son’s untimely death at the hands of multiple myeloma and a health care system that does not care or do enough.
There is something elegantly poetic about Harold being related to Daniel Boone on his mother’s side, Emilee Boone Murphree of Ashland, Ore., a city which Harold observed was “too much powdered sugar.” He was like that. Hyperbolic, absurd or very serious.
His daughter Sierra recalled Harold filling his lungs with helium to perform from Huckleberry Finn during her childhood. He was the same in recent years. Always entertaining in his droll, falsely serious persona of scientist, raconteur. Often he was simply an attendant ear to his many close friends.
Harold began college at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., but came to Berkeley (lucky for us) in the late ’60s. Though he never earned a degree, he would doubtless have made an outstanding teacher in any of several fields, having read deeply and relentlessly through his adult life and with little fear of complexity.
Harold leaves behind too many loving friends and intimates to mention, but here is something of a list. His siblings, from eldest to youngest are Gwyn Bissel of Napa, Terry Littleton of Ashland, Ore. (cue Harold!), Tom Murphree of Monterey, Eric Murphree of Albuquerque, N.M., Carl Murphree of Marshall, Mo. and Phil Murphree of Gillette, Wyo. He is survived by his mother and the mothers of his two daughters: Rosemary, who lives locally and is mother to Sierra (34), and Jackie Gamble, mother to Rose Ines Murphree Gamble (13). Our thoughts are constantly with these two young women.
He is also survived by his friends, Emmy, Phil, Lorna, Mark, Richard, Karl, Matt, Martin, Glen, Natalie, John and all the faithful at the Vine Street Peet’s and around Berkeley, as well as dozens of garden owners, homeowners, and others who benefitted and continue to benefit from his skill. We also wish to mention Don and Tracy Flory, Gigi Gamble, Joan Monheit, Margie Cohen, Sharon and Ben Ruffman-Cohen, Cate, Tom and Este.
He will be deeply missed and never forgotten while we are alive to kindle these flames.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Harold's Memorial Service
The date and time have been set for Harold's memorial service. Sierra sends the following:
Laddie's memorial service is going to be on
Saturday the 28th of November, 2pm
at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (in Kensington)
The address is 1 Lawson Road, Kensington CA 94707
and directions are found at http://uucb.org/directions.html
(google/mapquest, etc. are unreliable for this location)
please pass this information along to interested folk.
I am excited to see y'all who'll be able to make it.
Love,
Sierra
In Memorium by Bob Randolph
He's gone home
Today is the 19th of October. Harold went
home Sunday, during the night. He was a
giant among us.
He came from an historic and ancient valley in
Alabama. We never knew much about his early
life. We just knew that he was in a military
family, so he came to know almost every place
on the earth. This was also true for so many of
us, but none of us saw the invisible truths as
well as he did. He was able to contribute
something truthful about almost everything, no
matter what century it was in. He would know
why Julius Caesar was murdered by the
Brutuses of Rome, why the rainstorms were so
great in his Alabama valley in October of 1983,
way more than in the 3 years before, how
astronomers could tell when eclipses of the sun
would occur and where. It seemed important
about every subject imaginable. And he was
always modest. He knew so he would share it. It
was that simple.
He made his living knowing why creeks ran as
fast as they did, and how one human being
could move a 30-ton boulder into place at the
edge of the creek near the trees.
There have been many giants throughout
history. They all died, and they are all
remembered, as though they were still alive. It
is true that immortality exists; whenever they
touched lives 2 at a time or a million at a time,
they are all still alive.
Harold is in our memories, will always be
alive, and because of him, that he was in our
lives, we slowly become more able to think
and remember and share like him.
Let us remember, as he would have, that death
is a part of life, and that life is a part of the
eternity we join when our time on this tiny
planet is ended.
He will always be with us, on this corner. Let us
greet him here, each morning in the years we
have left.
Oct. 19, 2009
Bob Randolph
Today is the 19th of October. Harold went
home Sunday, during the night. He was a
giant among us.
He came from an historic and ancient valley in
Alabama. We never knew much about his early
life. We just knew that he was in a military
family, so he came to know almost every place
on the earth. This was also true for so many of
us, but none of us saw the invisible truths as
well as he did. He was able to contribute
something truthful about almost everything, no
matter what century it was in. He would know
why Julius Caesar was murdered by the
Brutuses of Rome, why the rainstorms were so
great in his Alabama valley in October of 1983,
way more than in the 3 years before, how
astronomers could tell when eclipses of the sun
would occur and where. It seemed important
about every subject imaginable. And he was
always modest. He knew so he would share it. It
was that simple.
He made his living knowing why creeks ran as
fast as they did, and how one human being
could move a 30-ton boulder into place at the
edge of the creek near the trees.
There have been many giants throughout
history. They all died, and they are all
remembered, as though they were still alive. It
is true that immortality exists; whenever they
touched lives 2 at a time or a million at a time,
they are all still alive.
Harold is in our memories, will always be
alive, and because of him, that he was in our
lives, we slowly become more able to think
and remember and share like him.
Let us remember, as he would have, that death
is a part of life, and that life is a part of the
eternity we join when our time on this tiny
planet is ended.
He will always be with us, on this corner. Let us
greet him here, each morning in the years we
have left.
Oct. 19, 2009
Bob Randolph
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