Nature’s Haunted House

This essay considers the fluid lines between history, nature, and the urban realm. Beginning with land cultivated by the Bixby family near Long Beach, California from 1878 into the mid-twentieth century, Waldie discusses how the landscape has changed by the Bixbys and those who came before and since. He then turns his attention to his own suburban neighborhood and California more broadly, and the way a sense of place, history, community, and nature are bound up in them.