Summer Day

Ah, those lazy summer afternoons, lying in the sun...or sitting in the computer lab at the public library. Either way, I'm enjoying it. I've actually been out for the last few hours helping Mack replace the stickers on the family recycling cans around Crystal Lake Park. We finished forty-five minutes before his scheduled finish time since he had a little extra help.

I love Crystal Lake Park. The name alone suggests a darker side for all the Jason Voorhees fans out there. Although, there have been no reported sightings of hockey-masked maniac wielding a rusted machete, Crystal Lake Park has not been free from the occassional dead body floating around in its waters. Between the dead bodies and all of the geese feces sitting on top of the water, I think it is time for a more appropriate renaming of the park, or at least the "lake," which is really about the size of a large pond. I'm not sure exactly what we should rename it. All of the bird excrement makes Lake Lepto sound just about right, but Lake Springfield already has the distinct honor of that nickname. T.C. Boyle's "Greasy Lake" sounds interesting enough, but of course is also already taken, and seems more fitting in the sense that it had a bunch of pseudo-greaser yuppie gearheads visiting its shores. Yet, this could be the right track. Who is most often walking the grounds and lakeshore of the park. There was the Homeless Cowboy who would often visit once a month to grill out with the food that he had recently received from one of the local shelters. It took me a while to understand that the mumbles and gutteral sounds with occassional bursts of yelling and then laughter were actual words uttered in some strange, perhaps half-crazed, dialect. In the time that I worked for the park district here, it seems like the homeless and the unemployed most enjoyed Crystal Lake as their favorite stomping ground. Even when I didn't see them or wake them by rolling up in the garbage truck at 6 am and emptying the trash cans at the pavillions--most often a lone guy would be sleeping on one of the picnic tables under the shelter--I would come across their left behind stashes. The choices would sometimes vary. I would occassionally come across Colts or Cobras or even a High Life, but the most common choice would be the Steel Reserve tallboy--a high life, indeed.

So, now, it seems most appropriate to me that Crystal Lake should be renamed Steel Reserve Lake--I mean "lake" just sounds more pleasant than "pond"--and the adress will be changed to 211 Broadway or 211 Park, the two main streets that intersect around Crystal Lake. I think it's time that we consider those who really utilize the public areas we provide in the community. And I'm not talking about recognizing the homeless in films like the new "Hobo With a Shotgun", starring Rutger Hauer. I saw it at the late night movie showing at the Art Theatre, after the premier of Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life." "Hobo" had its moments but, over all, was rather degrading and excessively campy. It also did little to make a socio-political point about homelessness in this nation other than make a tongue-in-cheek joke about the homeless being people to and the fact that the entire world was their home--at least the 70s B movies that it attempted to mock would do more than that even if the point driven home was incredibely heavy handed.

I'll end by simply saying that the two nights I attempted to sleep in parks this summer were both thwarted by local law enforcement. Each time, I was asked to leave by first University police and second by city police. They were very courteous, but also very clear in that my presence was not desired there. I ended up sleeping in my car parked on the street, quickly learning that the carseat would not work for an extended period of time as a bed. I know of one local homeless man, dubbed Grizzly Adams by some of the local town residents, who sleeps and lives in the front entrance to the City Building. I guess he gets away with it because he's been living around the downtown area for so long now, his previous domicile being the stairwell of the only parking garage downtown. Maybe, I just need to be more creative, or at least not leave my car in the park parking lot, drawing police scrutiny. It just makes the whole idea of homelessness a lot more real when you see the sun setting and know that you may have trouble finding a space where you can simply be for the night. Thankfully I have a few friends with comfy couches.

Day 2: If you're wondering, I met friends at a bar last night. Had to watch them drink down their craft beers while I sipped my water. Passed one of the local dives on the bike today and thought how nice it would be to grab one of their dollar pints of PBR and catch a Cub's loss on the tube if they are in fact playing on just another one of these lazy summer afternoons. Peace.