NEW YORK DAILY NEWS SUNDAY, MAY 25, 1997

Days of Flower Power in My Secret Garden
"We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden. . ." Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock," 1969

By Paula Mastroianni

One garden we can get back to is the magnificent New York Botanical Garden, and the long-awaited (especially for this kid) re-opening of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Mere glimpses of the exterior are proof enough that this extraordinary oasis of nature has been given the loving restoration it so richly deserves. The conservatory, and the entire Botanical Garden, is a majestic place of quiet dignity, exquisite beauty and peace - a rare haven in our midst.

Unfortunately, technology won another round against esthetics and the controversial WFUV radio tower near the main entrance is staying up. Well, music is important to have, too, and WFUV has always been a station of integrity and eclectic taste. Plus, the sweetest deejay in the world Pete Fornatale of WNEW-FM - started here, so there's the silver lining.

Getting back to the softer side of reality, if you visit the Botanical Garden now the golden daffodils are happily waiting to greet you (the same daffodils Nat King Cole sings about in "That Sunday, That Summer"), and other beautiful buds are calling out "It's spring! It's spring! Look how pretty we are!" Well, I hear them, anyway. (I was a child of the 60s...)

Wow, Jerry Garcia was right: What a long, strange trip it's been. I haunted the Botanical Garden during that decade. And in the 50s, it was the greatest backyard any kid could ever have.

Imagine playing hide-and-seek among those trees and rocky hills! We hiked north along the Bronx River, deep into the woods, making believe we were lost. Hot days found us dipping our bare feet in the cold water, gingerly stepping our way over slippery rocks, laughing, always laughing. We played in the lowlands, the marshy areas where ducks and frogs and other critters lived. It was like having our own secret garden.

Sometimes the boys would go on their own field trips. No girls allowed. Sometimes we did the same. Otherwise, we'd all go together, never for a moment bored or unaware of our beautiful surroundings.

We returned home after a along summer afternoon, smelling of sunshine and grass and the innocent sweat of children.

In the '60s, the Botanical Garden became a personal sanctuary where I could read, walk through the woods, and feed the squirrels. One day, engrossed in a book, I absent-mindedly scattered peanuts to the few squirrels who were there when I arrived. A few minutes later, I looked up and thought I was in Alfred Hitchcock's version of the "The Squirrels. "

Dozens of them were converging on me. I left the rest of the peanuts and ran like hell. I love animals, but 38 squirrels coming at you at one time is scary.

Come to think of it, 38 people would be even scarier.