At the park, in Waconia
Sunday, September 9, 2007
We had a fun day today. We got to see Grandpa & Joan, we got to eat pineapple & strawberries ( and to throw a bunch of other various foodstuffs to the floor), and we got to swing in the park. Boy, was it some park, too. I wish Lily was a little older, so she could revel in its glory. It was that cool, Im not kidding.
When I was a very little kid, my Mom took me to a park in Oak Park, IL, not too very far from where we lived, but far enough that we didn't go there very often. This was the coolest park ever, though my memories of it are vauge enough that it might just be my imagination swelling it to something it never was. But, so what, it lives in my memory even if the edges of it are frayed or it never set quite right. Those really early memories that are like a flip-book rather than a cartoon, a little jagged with some frames missing.
Anyway, this park had a train. A little kid train that you could get in/on & ride around. I think I might have ridden it once. I'm pretty sure I did, but if I didn't, then I at least saw it operational, with a conductor running the locomotive, red bandana, hat and all. Every time I went there, I looked for the train first thing, going 360 degrees around the shack where I presumed it lived when it was outside the normal hours of operation. I wanted it to be there, waiting for us to run up & hop on. I was hoping to hear a whistle, or a choo, or a chugga-chugga or even some calliope music. I have an impression of autumn leaves covering ground around the shack. And of a padlock on the door.
I think about it now, and am a little sad, but it was still a really good park, as parks are rated by the little kids who ride on the rides and try to bounce each other off the teeter-totters and wade in the kiddie pools. I want Lily to have something like that, a memory of something sweet to last for thirty years & more.
Did I mention that the park had an Olympic pool, like with the three diving boards lined up by height ascending. That was the best.
Posted byJeff Miller at 8:46 PM