The Park

Having Mauricio die brought it all back. That small insignificant park of our childhood was located in the middle of the smallest street in the neighborhood. It was hard to call it a park at all considering that is was only 2 house lots joined with a few appurtenances of the normal park. But that park was the most significant part of my life until adulthood. The playground of our childhood was a map to our lives and the physical structure of that playground was indicative of age. Starting at the most distant childhood memory going forward to the last days we had spent at the playground would literally take you from the furthest corner of the playground to the outside.

The slide, one of the first joys I had at the park, was set in deepest part of the playground. To arrive at the slide you had to enter the park and pass the maniacal metallically menacing beast, the swing set. As a child there was not a more menacing creature in the playground than that instrument of torture. On to the safety of the slide, which ironically was a big metal beast that stood all most as tall as the swing but with no moving parts. Without fear I climb the stairs, well with some but too brave to show Mauricio any I would climb. Pushed on but loathing each steep I would climb until I reached the apex of the mountain. At the summit I would look down with horror and anticipation of the joyous ride to the bottom. I placed my Rumptz on the shinny surface and knew I was in for the ride of my life. The simplicity of the pleasure was analogous to the earnest candor of childhood joy.

The swings will always have a special place in my heart for it was here that I truly cemented the friendships that would last me a lifetime, albeit too short of a lifetime. The swings became the playthings of my prepubescent adolescence when friendships were simple and carefree as the swings themselves. The swings are located left of the entrance just inside the park they stand in front of the slide. Easy to get to like a true friendship, the swings were no longer the menacing beast they had been in my youth they became the refuge from the torrent of shocks of a turbulent youth. That we continued going to the playground in our adolescence could be summed up in two words “No Parents!” But we had to move on from the childish slides to the more manly swings. Also the slide could only accommodate one person at a time and as teens we wanted all to be first so the swings, with 6 seats, were perfect. The seats perfectly aligned in a row allowed us to talk about the woes of our world, parents, school, and boredom. The swings were adolescents themselves being long lanky and easily mixed up. Danger lurked in every thrust of the swing scared you might be the one who actually went all the way around. Then just when you were at the apex of the swings’ arc, to avoid the complete rotation, to impress your friends or to just have some fun you would jump off and land in the grass to the howls of your peers. That is until they attempted to do you one better.

Finally we reach the entrance to the park, the final resting place of the group’s activities. While we had spent our prepubescent adolescence playing in, on, under and around the park it was not until we reached pubescence that we understood the full utility of the playground. Gone were the daylight hours starting were the night hours at the playground. For you see our original intent for seeking refuge in the park was “No Parents” now it was “No Adults!’ and especially “No Police.” From now on our time at the playground became more nefarious. We sought the refuge of the playground and we needed the cover of darkness for our clandestine and illicit purposes. We needed the space of the street offered for cars, for dance contest, for the number of people that group had swelled to. Surprisingly, considering that the park was engulfed in houses no adults or police cared to bother us even when the music was quite loud. Although we became old enough to go to bars we still came back to the park for the secrecy and security that it offered, but only occasionally.

My youth was spent at a small park in Detroit, Michigan called Bleden Park. As you walk into the park you walk into my past. I befriended a young Columbian boy named Mauricio at this park. He would be a friend whom I would have all of his life. We had spent many a year at the park discussing life and what it meant to be a man. He, like the park itself, remained wonderful only to those who knew how to see past the detritus. The irony was that he would die of consumption as I was planning to visit him after a 10-year hiatus of contact. Though he has died the park will remain forever the same small and insignificant place I call my childhood.