hat April of 1988 was a kindly month, the waters of San Francsiquito creek, having shrunken to a jewelled string of ponds, became a gladed Eden. I walked above the bank on a dappled path beneath valley oaks and sycamores flanked with fields of fresh spring grass, knee high and kissed by perfect slanting sunbeams filtered through unraveling old blue gum trees. It was the nineteenth of that month; it had rained in the night but now in the fresh morning the gauzy clouds had begun to lift; the sun was making its way from winter vacation, in Chile, travelling north at six miles an hour, warming the spine of our Pacific state a degree centigrade each month. Though the air and though the grass were fresh and sweet it would be dry by mid morning and the greenness would within days begin its month's quiet extinction. Then the creek would dry into a string of scummy pools and in the big field the grass would get a parched tired look and there would be a tawny haze in the lower sky in the afternoon. Water officials were predicting are turn to rationing in the summer, a drought was tightening like a dry cough on the green valleys of our state. Thinking of this, I felt thirsty, and imagining the creek to be as yet clean, I knelt and cupped a small drink. The sun was warm on my head, and relaxed now from my troubles, I sat beneath a large oak tree. I must have fallen asleep, for a moment or a few minutes, I don't know which.