Will our parks stay totally open to all?

Our East Side Park in Morris, reportedly set for big change! The stage has been woefully underused.

I remember listening to a radio program on one of the Fargo stations that had a park board leader as a guest. Park board leaders must be among the most altruistic souls. Kind-hearted and public-spirited. This individual said that in his background, he has found that any time the board suggests something new, it meets resistance from somewhere. 

So while these people have the best intentions, they can meet determined resistance. In contemporary parlance, "do ya think?" 

Some waves are being made with our Morris MN parks, ahem. I don't have the kind of thorough knowledge like I once would have had when I was at the newspaper. These days I sort of rely on the "shoeshine guy" and by that I mean, people who I casually interact with. And I don't even do as much of that any more. I try to stay interested just to feel enlivened as a human being. 

So, I hear about this group called "NextGen." My immediate reaction to the name is that it seems rather dismissive of older people. In that category I am definitely affixed. Yesterday I was reminded of a famous quote attributed to the great movie guy Roger Ebert. This is a very close paraphrase: "You will reach a time in your life when your biggest source of joy will be to have a good bowel movement." 

My news yesterday was good on that front, and believe me I can remember well. 

Us older folks can be concerned about getting called back to a clinic for some sort of follow-up consultation. Well I have good news on this front too: I went in for a "blood draw" and had the phone ring 2-3 hours later as expected. Good news! A friendly nurse informed me that my A1C had gone down "a whole point." That was the whole goal! I was told to just keep doing my positive lifestyle things. One of these is to take walks. 

I got lucky recently when we had the unseasonably mild temperatures. I got out for my full walks. Lately it has been rather a pisser. Winter will end, won't it? It's all supposed to be uphill after the Solstice. Days can only get longer. But the hope is not exactly affirmed in reality. 

So it's February. Arduous time of the year. What would we do without high school and college basketball, men's and women's? 

 

This image from Flickr is an example.

Can be disconcerting

Think of public parks and you think of exercising. Great for the kids of course. But wait a minute, there is an issue in connection with kids and parks these days. 

We've seen a trend of cities putting up signs in parks telling adults who are not accompanied by children to stay out. Or maybe just stay out at certain times. 

A legacy of the decades-long Jacob Wetterling investigation? Where we learned to have suspicion about a lot of adults based on. . .well based on just a few high-profile cases of perverts being caught? 

So now there's a presumption of suspicion about nearly all old people? How can you not think that's sad? 

 

The extreme of "handcuffs"

Oh my, this in the news now: a quite innocent mom being put in handcuffs because her child was seen walking several blocks away from home. Not a toddler, mind you. I shouldn't have to tell you that news reports have been out and about on such things. 

A college kid decides to relax with a reading assignment in a nice comfortable public park. Isn't that what it is for? Not necessarily in the year 2025 when regulations of all kinds have burgeoned. 

It is no longer the child's responsibility to be careful when getting off a school bus, not like when I was a kid. It is entirely the motorist's responsibility. New flashing lights have been put on school buses - you've noticed these - to better alert drivers of the absolute need to stop. We heard about so many "school bus stop arm violations" and these must have been devastating to those getting tickets, like with car insurance. Not to mention the fine. 

"They had it coming?" Is it really that simple? I believe a former Morris mayor got two of these. While we're on the subject of school buses, do we even need the old system of orange school buses anymore? So very costly to run. The system began in the days when every neighborhood had a batch of school-age children. Seemed logical then. I don't know about now. 

So many kids are in extracurricular after school and they don't even get on the bus. Whenever I see an orange school bus, I change my route to just get way from it. Too risky to get close. 

I mentioned the college kid who wanted to relax in a nice park and consume some pages of reading. What more innocent sight? But some cops came along and told him in a most brusque way: "There are children playing here." Really? So the student is automatically perceived to be a danger? Terrible presumption but this is the legacy of Wetterling and some other sad situations. 

Here's another example from "Reddit"

The encounter with the police and the student is captured on YouTube BTW. Maybe there was a sign somewhere in the park but these can be missed. Law enforcement action is so swift just like with the mom whose kid was seen walking away from the home. That situation got a lot of news coverage and as a legal matter I think it's still ongoing. It shocks people. 

So here's a thought that enters my mind: what about a high school kid under age 18 who runs cross country and wants to get in shape for the upcoming season? The kid wants to run significant miles over the summer. Maybe 3-4 kids of that age would get together for such a thing, but there is no adult accompanying them. You couldn't expect a parent to do that. 

OK someone "calls the cops," unlikely but possible. You never know. Are the parents at risk for being thrown into handcuffs? While Elon Musk invades the U.S. Treasury and there is no immediate law enforcement intervention? But high school kids working out to prepare for cross country? Technically they are "alone" and unaccompanied. The parents could in fact be in trouble. 

But don't kids go to and from their activities unsupervised quite often? Even if it's a few blocks, I guess it's still dicey. Man, my own parents would have been put in handcuffs in a heartbeat. Boomers often talk about such waves of change in our society, how kids and really everyone used to accept so much risk. 

Someone at my church said "the way we handle kids these days, maybe we should just wrap them in Nerf until they're 18." 

What really happens, I guess, is that kids are kept locked indoors where they play video games incessantly and get obese. Once obese, their lifespan is shortened. But I guess this is the way it has to be. 

The real story of the Wetterling investigation is one of law enforcement incompetence. Look at the price we're paying as a society. 

Will the new East Side Park in Morris have signs restricting the presence of adults? Because kids are there? Makes me feel rather stigmatized. I guess I know what black people felt like under Jim Crow.

- Brian Williams -morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com