Community Hackles in Everyday Ramblings

This was taken just after sunrise a couple of days ago. Wonderful light for this white anemone.

This morning, I had to break into a lively discussion of the love poem I read at the end of class and making things for fun out of scraps to run off for the dental CT scan that was scheduled to coordinate with a teeth cleaning appointment. I had everything all ready to go including my old plastic watering can so that I could drop it off at the garden on the way down.

I hustled and got there on time only to find out that they had canceled the CT, as it was too soon after the surgery without telling me. I got to sit and wait for the second appointment. Luckily it wasn’t too long but they could have told me. My hygienist is lovely and that all went well, and I have the main appointments scheduled starting in October. So yay, no more dental “stuff” until then.

A few weeks ago, I was on the bus coming home with my groceries and there was a youngish man, not a teenager, and not middle-aged in a tie-dyed t-shirt acting somewhat anti-social by playing a loud rap song on some sort of equipment on the seat next to him. The buses are pretty quiet these days with most folks choosing headphones. (Sometimes one does hear out of tune singing from said folks though.)

This was bothersome and I was happy to get off. After I got off, I noticed he got off behind me. My stop is on the edge of a park. The park has a grassy mound and just a few steps away, a concrete wall that often folks practice hitting balls against. This wall is fairly often covered with some sort of graffiti. The Parks Department comes round and paints over it regularly. It had just been painted a nice shade of green a few days before.

I hear the guy move towards the wall, drop a bag, and then I hear the distinct sound of a spray paint can. On a bright summer day at 9:30 AM.

He was completely blatant about it and because he was bigger than me and sending off hostile vibes I didn’t want to confront him. But it was so brazen, so in the face, I was troubled by it. Our non-emergency police line is swamped, and I know they are directing people to a web site. (I did ask a Parks Department employee the next day as I was looking at the unattractive, dare I say ugly huge tag the guy had left if there was anyone there, I could call.)

I didn’t want to obviously take a picture because, again, the man was menacing, (he was white by the way). I do know our police department does have a graffiti team. I ended up not doing anything directly except noticing and talking to the Parks Department guy, and actually talking to my Open Road guys about it to see if they had any ideas.

This Monday there were a whole bunch of trucks parked near the park and activity and I was most curious to see what they were doing.

Today when I went out, lo and behold there were light posts. Nice ones with antique looking fixtures up top all along the path by the corner of the park with two lights that will fully illuminate the wall at night.

If it had been dark and I could lurk in the dark off to the side, I would have taken a photo of the guy tagging the wall. And I would have sent it to the graffiti team.

I am not opposed to organic street art in the least. I find it creative and engaging often. But this, blatant anti-social tagging that defaces a place for folks to go for a moment of respite in a busy day…not my thing. Raises my community hackles.

These light posts must have been in the works for a long while. There is a ton of deferred maintenance our Parks Department has in the hopper. I have seen the spreadsheets. :)

But still, what a gift. To us, to the community to have this improvement. They also took all the moss off the interior wall of the slightly sunken tennis court and replaced the net recently. And the reported hornet’s nest in the playground area was removed right away.

It will be interesting to see if this attention and care being shown the park acts as a bit of a deterrent in the future. Even if it doesn’t, I am glad the attention is being paid.

It gives the hope muscle a bit of a warm up.

Last updated August 07, 2024