the paloverde tree

Suddenly I heard a door slam and

looked around and there was Mr Wright in his cloak and his pancake hat and his cane coming out of his apartment at the end of this desert camp. He saw me standing there --there was nobody else -- and he was obviously in a very good mood, so he came by. He looked out at the desert with me and indulged in a certain amount of chitchat. Suddenly he said, 'George, do you know what architecture is?' I thought, Oh boy, this is why I've been following around this old man for seven or eight years. I said, ' Uh, I think, Mr Wright, that there's not much point in my trying to tell you, but if you'll tell me, I'd be very much obliged.' That was the right answer; he didn't want me to tell him whether I knew what architecture was, he couldn't have cared less. But, like a lot of other people in this neighborhood, he liked the sound of his own voice, so I said 'What is architecture, Mr Wright?'

He looked around and on the terrace,

which was a rough stone terrace, somebody had left a king of triangular hole which was part of a whole system of little walls, very pretty, in which they had planted a paloverde tree. A paloverde tree is a desert tree with green bark on it, which is why it's called the green stick or pole tree. It doesn't have leaves, it has spines, which is characteristic of desert vegetation. Leaves evaporate too much and they don't make out well in desert climates. So here was this very pretty little tree, and at that season it was covered with kind of butter-coloured little blossoms, prettiest damn thing you ever saw.

He waved his cane at the paloverde tree,

and he said, 'Architecture is a little bit like that paloverde tree coming into bloom.' And I said, 'Is that really what architecture is, Mr Wright?' I don't know when I've felt so disappointed. He said, 'Yeah, it's sort of like that, it's like this wonderful new tree coming into bloom.' Then he wandered off, swinging his cane, heading for his next victim, whenever he could pick one up. And then he stopped suddenly, very abruptly, and turned around and he said, 'Well, George, it isn't exactly like a paloverde tree coming into bloom. It's more like a boy falling in love with a girl or a girl falling in love with a boy.'

I said, 'Thank you very much.' And I thought, You old laggard, I've been coming out here for years trying to get the thing right from the horse's mouth, and you tell me it's like a paloverde tree or a boy and a girl. I could've figured that out staying in Europe. Well, the fact was this marvelous old man had told me all he knew. Took me about ten years to figure that one out. But there wasn't anything else.

Everything else was just technology.

-George Nelson