Park & Ride

There was an article in the paper last week about how residents in many of the new housing developments are upset because developers have not built the parks they were promised. Instead of rolling green grass and sparkling playground equipment the neighborhood is left with a field of weeds.

I can understand why these people would be upset, especially considering they coughed up as much as $600 a piece to pay for the parks. I’d be wondering where in the hell my park was too. But I think it’s funny that these people are acting like if there is no park there won’t be a place for their children to play. Do these track homes not have yards?

I spent many hours playing in the dirt fields surrounding my childhood home. I loved it. There was always something to explore or some treasure to discover. There were all kinds of bugs and plants and weeds to look at. I had a front yard and a back yard full of grass. I liked the dirt fields.

Not having a park anywhere near my house made a trip to the park a special event. I think the closest was Patriot's Park and that wasn’t built until I was a little older. I was young enough to be excited over the spiral slides. I also remember going to the park over by South High that had a huge metal Robot slide. That was cool.

The best part of any park has got to be the swings. When I was little I would push as hard as I could to fly higher and higher until my heart would jump as I felt myself lift off of the seat. Then I would swing slower again until I reached what I thought to be a reasonable height so I could leap out and crash into the sand. I ate a lot of sand doing that.

The weather has been beautiful. I think I’ll go to the park and play on the swings.