Sunrise 6:09: Suburban priorities

Part of the Dawn Joggers' amusement on their early morning outings is watching neighborhoods transform. It's compounded for the female Dawn Jogger as she rode the same Menlo Park streets on her bicycle growing. She's noticed it's not just the big things - tear 'em down and build a mini-mansion - that changes a neighborhood's character. It's also the small - like where did all the fruit trees go? Some of the streets with deep lots - Hobart, Cotton and Hermosa between Middle and Santa Cruz - had backyards that were mini orchards, complete with bee hives and an occasional chicken coop. Her father planted berry vines, and peach, apricot and cherry trees in his Hillview Drive backyard. Whether growing backyard crops was a residual of coming of age during the Depression or just a joyous expression of escaping city life for the "country," she's not sure. But she pondered the loss when she spied some ripening fruit (on maybe an ornamental fruit tree) in a Bay Laurel front yard.