The Bell Tree Sculpture in the Missouri Botanical Garden was pretty popular. While waiting patiently in the line mostly consisted of giggly five-year-olds and their parents to play with the sculpture, I, for some reasons, began to gleefully hum Bob Dylan’s “All I Really Want to Do” in my nearly-sunburned head.

I don’t want to fake you out
Take or shake or forsake you out
I ain’t lookin’ for you to feel like me
See like me or be like me
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you

Finally, it was my turn. I quickly set up my field-recorder and played various bells in the sculpture while five-year-olds, eyes wild-opened, clinging to their parents like cute baby koala bears and watching a mildly strange fellow making friends with sounds of bells.

The Bell Tree Sculpture of the Zimmerman Sensory Garden, a garden specifically designed for the visually impaired in the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, was created by Vernon D. Gross, William C. Severson, and Paolo Soleri in 1986. It was donated by Mrs. E.F. Zimmerman as a gift to the garden.

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