Reconciliation

 Promised:

Delivered:

Yesterday, Cathy and I hopped into my car for a Road Trip! I wanted to see the results of the Park Service shifting an acre or so of soil in the Peoples' Park, last October. Perhaps you remember:

All that remained snarkily undisturbed was the tiny corner with the old bubbler, framed by the spruce and the veterans' flagpole, now

completely hidden by untrimmed trees and bushes.

Cathy and I walked the sidewalk in the first picture. The entire area was full, but not crowded, with people. There is ample parking in the lot on the right hand side of the first picture. The corresponding grassed area on the other side of the road actually is brown dirt and earth moving equipment. It probably is destined for more parking, but I did not verify that.

There were people taking pictures with the National Park sign. There were people taking regular pictures. There were people walking dogs. Lots of people and dogs. There were people with kayaks. There is a launch point into the Cuyahoga River behind the Boston Mill Visitor Center, the tan building in the first two pictures. There were people enjoying a lovely and warm August morning.

There were an abundance of millenials, and their children. Like my parent's generation, and my own, they were people who needed a place to park the car while they spent the morning or afternoon walking and enjoying the water, the woods, the trails.

I'm sure they appreciated a decent path to get from the parking lot, to their destination. 

I called the park and talked to a ranger today. I can not believe the tangle of weeds growing e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e is intentional. If they wanted to grow pollinator attracting plants, how could such an awful result have happened?

And the ranger said, the groundscape is a good idea gone bad. Apparently "Land and Resource Management" brought in many truckloads of dirt that was of poor quality and full of non-native invasive seeds. Actually, he confided, they have been pulling the invasives. The landscape department will have another go at it.

So yes, another chunk of Boston history is gone. No one cares except those of us involved.  On the whole, anyone who has title and ownership of anything can tear it down and do something different. The People never had legal title to the property, and the fact The People used and maintained it for over a hundred years is of of no interest to the government. And so it goes.