My parents were reluctant to let me return to Hortense and warned me multiple times about drinking. But I'd be damned if something kept me from my Ecology 101 class.
"Ecology is the Earth in motion," said Dr. Crane, a woman with short black curls and skin the color of coffee. We were half an hour into the first day of class for spring semester. Dr. Crane adjusted her glasses. "I want you all to take a walk in the College Woods. Peel back bark and look for termites. Watch for birds – maybe a hawk, maybe an owl. Bring a journal and write down what you see. Think – what put these organisms there? Why are the trunks of the wetland trees near the lake swollen at their bases? What physiological processes are occurring in plants that lay dormant for the winter? Dig up roots, look for the nodules on legumes. Think about the symbiotic bacteria in them, without which there wouldn't be agriculture. Everything is balanced, like a top spinning."
