Today I took a shorter walk, only about 1 mile. I have seen Lester Milligan Park as I have driven around Mason City, and I thought it looked like a good place to "get away" from the hustle of traffic. The first thing that caught my eye was the skate park. Backed by titanic blocks of metal, its bright graffiti-clothed concrete and rusted metal frame really catches the eye as it swoops upward to the blue sky. Somehow, it made me think of flying.
Crossing from the skate park back to the lake, it did not take long to re-enter the park's fiction of a natural setting.
The air was crisp and the sun was bright, and the park was empty. Almost creepily so. As I walked the trail around the lake, I felt a little bit uneasy. The signs all said "family-friendly" park, but today, it felt abandoned; it felt like the kind of place people go after dark to meet other people who don't want their faces to be seen. There were some physical signs that contributed to my feeling. As I walked down little pathways towards the water, I would find empty liquor bottles and discarded latex gloves. Across the street from the park, there is a church with a parking lot emblazoned by lights, a parking lot encumbered with signs that say "No Trespassing" and "This parking lot under video surveillance 24 hours," a parking lot and building that suggest the vigilance of the TSA rather than the assumption of grace. Virtually every sign in the park that said "Family Friendly Park, no Alcohol" was painted over with green graffiti.
I wonder whether this is a lively park on the weekends. I wonder whether it is just that today is Halloween, and that most days the park is full of children playing, fishers fishing and skaters trying their best to defy gravity. I wonder if I carried this unease with me today, or whether this actually is a place where a person needs to be wary.
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