Assorted Prose<\/em>, 1965), John Updike, who would have been 78 today, wrote:<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I was born, my parents and my mother\u2019s parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree . . . was, in a sense, me.” According to Updike’s Shillington contact, Dave Silcox, John’s mother later corrected him, telling him it was planted on the one-year anniversary of his birth.<\/p>\n
In “The Dogwood Tree,” Updike continued with a line that has more resonance today than when he wrote it: \u00a0“My dogwood tree still stands in the side yard, taller than ever . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n
Happy birthday.<\/p>\n
(Photo courtesy of Jack De Bellis, taken in spring 2009)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In perhaps his most famous autobiographical essay, “The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood” (Assorted Prose, 1965), John Updike, who would have been 78 today, wrote: \u201cWhen I was born, my parents and my mother\u2019s parents planted a dogwood tree in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":396,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391\/revisions\/396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>In perhaps his most famous autobiographical essay, “The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood” (Assorted Prose<\/em>, 1965), John Updike, who would have been 78 today, wrote:<\/p>\n