Features

Berkeley Path Named for Chronicler of Wild West

By MELISSA NIX Special to the Planet
Friday October 31, 2003

Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series by UC Berkeley journalism students on the paths of Berkeley.  

 

At 1095 Keeler Ave., a modest modern house stretches across a small sloping lawn. Inside someone is playing the piano. Soon a honeyed, baritone voice joins in, singing “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” alongside. The effect is both beautiful and haunting, as the melody spills out of the windows on a hot afternoon. The voice belongs to George Turman, 76, a professional musician originally from Nashville. He’s also the pianist.  

“George came out to Berkeley in 1943 to go to Cal, “ says Nebraska native Janet Turman, his wife of 40 years. “He usually plays sax, but taught himself to play piano...Honey, do you sing as a tenor?” 

“No, I sing as a baritone,” replies George.  

Bret Harte Path begins two doors down from the Turmans. Five flights of concrete steps lead upward—ivy on either side—before the path dissolves into the dried grass and brush between the backyards of 1099 and 1103-5 Keeler Ave. Here it becomes impassable. 

The historic walk was named after the San Francisco writer and journalist who chronicled frontier California in the 1860s and 70s. It once served as a shortcut from Bret Harte Road to Sterling Avenue (named for writer George Sterling), and vice versa, cutting out a looping, circuitous route.  

A bit further on Keeler, Gail Greenwood, a 36-year-old strawberry blonde commercial lawyer, holds a baby boy with lively blue eyes. They’re cooling off in the shade. “I often take the paths around here for recreation, “ says Greenwood. “The entrance to Sterling Path is just past the orange van on the left.” 

The Sterling Path steps are concrete and uneven; utilitarian metal banisters parallel each flight. After the third flight, the path turns to dirt. Wild blackberry bushes meet large droopy pink flowers on long green stalks. The flowers grow haphazardly out of matted dry grass and give the path an ambiance of a science fiction set. Before long, the path becomes concrete again and ends at Cragmont Avenue—its final flight carpeted with the palest evergreen needles, blanched by the sun.