Jogging the memory

It was an 8 a.m. class 31 years ago: Urban Geography, taught by Dr. Roger Barnett at University of the Pacific. It was my kind of science class because it required no microscopes, test tubes or dead frogs, yet count toward meeting the science requirement to graduate.

8 a.m. classes were killers because I worked for the school's sports information department, often finishing around midnight after basketball or volleyball games. Coherency was never a gimme.

Somehow, through the fogs of mind and morning, I managed to retain some of what I learned. While reviewing the stories and information Bee reporters Garth Stapley and Michael Shea developed for the growth scorecard series, the neo-traditional neighborhood approach was consistent in the developments or planned developments in the cities that ranked highest.

I remembered Barnett's lectures on neo-traditional development -- the history, the benefits -- because I'd grown up in a town designed the same way. Neo-traditional homes have big front porches, garages located behind the homes or well off the streets. For certain, the garages are the home's most prominent feature, as is the case with the more contemporary home. Some neo-traditional neighborhoods have back alleys so that you don't have your garbage cans out on the street or sidewalk.

Anyway, whatever Barnett said in those lectures stuck with me all these years. Not many of my other professors can claim that, though it's not their fault.