Shepherd, Shepard, Sheperd
It’s impressive, in a way, that Google Maps manages to spell this Oakland locale three different ways in about one square inch of map. Of course, some ‘Shephard Canyon’ partisans might argue that all three are incorrect. (Yahoo Maps follows general convention, and official City of Oakland terminology, by going with ‘Shepherd Canyon’ for all three.)
My take is that the Canyon may have had sheep back in the old days so Sheperd would be correct but your post has me trying to find my copy of The Sheperd of the Hills the underated 1941 John Wayne flick that I love and because it has actors like Harry Carey,Ward Bond,Majorie Main(Ma Kettle) and the best name ever Beulah Bondi.A great Ozark family mess of a movie.By the way I spent about half and hour at the Oakland Geology blog you linked.Great site!
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:07 pmJabel: I’m with you on the sheep theory, but when it comes to the spelling, you might want to double check the title of that John Wayne flick…
The Oakland Geology blog is pretty great, but I’m a little surprised that it was so absorbing to someone who doesn’t live here. Do you like all those John McPhee books on geology too? (I enjoyed the one about California, but not enough to read all the others.)
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 pmYikes I left an H out.The Geology blog is great because I spent the summer of 70 as a fifteen year old in Berkeley and then 1975 as a freshman taking classes at Merritt and UC and usually driving back through Redwood in75 .A lot of stops in the Oakland Hills to take in the views and light the herb in a red datsun 510 or was it 310.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:40 pmPS,I love all the John McPhee books.
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 pmJabel: Ah, I didn’t realize that your college career involved lighting the herb at a frat house in Brookline and in a red Datsun in the Oakland hills. I’m pretty sure that lighting the herb while driving is frowned upon these days, even here in the home of Oaksterdam University.
June 24th, 2009 at 12:03 amMy favorite thing about John McPhee’s writing is that he can make me be interested in things I probably never would have thought about except that he introduced me to them. (This quality is what distinguishes all the regular New Yorker contributors imo.) The geology books are probably his greatest achievement, but even shad fishing has its moments. DAVE, have you not read Coming into the Country (McPhee on Alaska)? It’s quite wonderful.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:05 amI’m going back to College!!!! or University.
June 24th, 2009 at 1:05 pmCarol I agree with you about McPhee and Coming into the Country is my fave.There is also a McPhee reader that is pretty good with tales of the Jersey Pine Barrens,Growing Oranges in Florida etc.I love his book on Shad.I think the first time I read him was in the New Yorker in the 70′s? when he did the long article on the guy making Birch Bark canoes in New England by hand that led to a book.
June 24th, 2009 at 9:23 pmI have a copy of Coming Into the Country, but I haven’t read it. I bought it about 5 or 6 years ago when I was reading a lot of old McPhee all at once, but I never got around to that one. I’ve been to Alaska twice since I bought it, so I would like to read it sometime. I didn’t realize it was considered (at least by you two) among his best. I enjoy his stuff, but after reading a lot of his work all at once, the tone started grating on me a bit. A bit self-satisfied or something — “look at me, I’m writing about subject X that no one thought they would be interested in reading about, and I’m making it fascinating.” And, damn him, he usually does make it fascinating, or at least a nice read. Maybe I’m just envious…
June 24th, 2009 at 9:51 pmPerhaps, Dave, but I see him more as an enthusiast, and someone who finds himself lucky to be one. So yes, he is self-satisfied but not egoistic, At least imo.
Bo, I first read about the Pine Barrens after traveling from Newark Airport to Cape May to meet some future in-laws. We went through the edge, of course, and I was fascinated to find a strange landscape there. Upon reading McPhee I learned the landscape was not the only strange thing about this part of New Jersey.
June 25th, 2009 at 2:40 pmCarol: I don’t disagree about McPhee. It was only when I digested a large amount at once that it started tasting a little less good, but that can be true for almost anything. I still read most of his new stuff, or at least I did until I let my NYer subscription lapse.
That last sentence reminds me how annoying I find it that the present and past tenses of ‘read’ are spelled the same way. It’s amazing how often I end up rewriting a sentence because the ambiguity of the tense bothers me.
June 25th, 2009 at 6:25 pmBut you will never think “misread” should be comparable to “misled,” which as a child I pronounced something like “mizzled,” analogizing to “puzzled,” perhaps, and certainly misled by a not yet educated reading of “sled” as an ending. I also pronounced all the letters in “Goethe,” unable to analogize from the name of a local department store, Titche-Goettinger. Sometimes I think half the purpose of language is to confuse, not enlighten. Of course!
June 26th, 2009 at 7:05 pm