In Bloom
As Ben began to walk south on his first loop around the park, he approached the tennis courts. A tennis ball flew over the fence towards him from the courts. He noticed the instructor, looking all of thirty years old, tan, with hair in a ponytail, lobbing bright, yellow balls from a hopper towards a thirty-something woman who looked like she recently purchased fresh, new tennis attire. Ben imagined that her husband was probably in finance, earning the paycheck, while she had nothing to do during the day because the kids were with a nanny. For the woman, she also got an escape from the guilt of watching their cleaning lady do the housework, knowing she was fully capable of keeping the house clean. Instead she justified the day with her “exercise.”
Ben was along the part of the path that runs parallel to the street, and he made a mental note of the progress of the new house being built on the other side of the street. Like many tear-downs in the neighborhood, the previous house was being replaced by a monster of a building. The original house was an 800 square foot ranch, but by Ben’s guess the new house would be three levels, with the building having no yard as it stretched from property line to property line, most likely around 4,000 square feet.
Up towards the left was a playground, and on a picture-perfect, summer day there were dozens of kids with their nannies, most of whom looked to be high school or college students from the neighborhood. The nannies were sitting on the park benches, gossiping about the wives in the neighborhood, while the kids ran wild, and Ben was torn when he saw the behavior. Part of him was happy for the kids, running around, thinking of when he was younger and his parents never made it to the park to watch him and his friends dangerously hang from the jungle gyms. The other side of Ben was thinking that the nannies should be paying more attention to the kids who were one fall away from a broken arm or a cracked skull.
“Ahh, a bump or bruise from falling off the high bar will probably do some of these kids good.” Ben thought to himself.
With the sun in full happiness and the air free of stickiness, the flowers in bloom were especially bright. Ben realized that he might have to pull out his camera phone on this walk as there was too much beauty to ignore.
Making his way to the south end of the park, Ben veered east through an area shaded by larger oak and buckeye trees. The occasional walker came towards Ben, and he was always one to smile and say, “Hello.”
Rounding the bend near the marsh, a burdock plant was getting ready to achieve full bloom. Ben pondered how most people considered the burdock a weed, but to him the flowers were so beautiful. He took his phone out of his pocket, paused, and did his best to try to frame something creative. In his head, Ben thought that maybe he would make a photo collection of beautiful weeds, but deep inside he knew it was a project that would stay in his head. It would be another picture no one would ever see.
With the picture taken, Ben continued along the path that cut through two of the ballfields. Up ahead Ben could see the batting cages.
“Doesn’t look like anyone is in there. Why do they even have them?” he wondered.
Secretly, though, the urge to go into the cages came upon him, but he headed down the east path between more ballfields. The dream of going into the batting cages and discovering he had a magical ability to be a great hitter quickly went away.
The sun was making a bright, yellow foul pole compete with the yellow daisies in the distance for yellowness, and Ben decided another picture was in order. He crouched under the pole, shooting an upward picture with the deep, blue sky as the background. He looked at his phone, smiled at the picture, and continued on his way.
Even though Ben had walked past the miniature golf course at Spring Grove Park many times, each stroll along the fence made him think back to the time when he was a kid, spending days and nights at the Putt-Putt course near his house. He remembered how the local radio station would have call-in contests for free tickets, and he and his friend, Billy, would constantly win. He chuckled how they must have been the only people calling for the free passes since they kept winning, and briefly wondered what ever happened to the Putt-Putt golf course, and to Billy.
A prairie grove was coming up on Ben’s right as he made his way north. Yellow daisies were interspersed with purple prairie flowers, and he decided to stop and take a few more pictures. He texted one of the pictures of the purple flowers to Amy as he knew she loved purple flowers.
“Wish you were here on this walk with me!”, the text read. Ben did wish she were with him instead of the prospect of having to go back to the office.
Amy texted back, “Beautiful. Me, too.”
A slight bend to the west and the walking path was now bordered on the right by a run of tall trees doing their best to block a row of car dealers, while on the left was a multipurpose area with two fields. One of the fields was filled with the high school football team starting their summer workouts, while the soccer kids kept missing the nets on the other field.
A smell of oil permeated through the trees from the auto shops as Ben walked by, and there it was, his favorite sign, “Do not mow.” From the looks of the overgrown marsh next to the upcoming soccer fields, the instructions on the sign had been followed all summer.
