Not Exactly A Walk In The Park

Willow and I are about to go for our daily constitutional. I live in a neighborhood densely populated with dogs--so many dogs. I would guess fifty percent of the dogs are pitties. Most are super friendly; typically, their tongues are lolling out of their mouths as their entire bodies wag with enthusiasm.

There are exceptions, of course. The other day, as we drove home from running errands, we saw two pitties being walked on opposite sides of the street. On one side, a sweet, happy, brown-and-white dog obediently followed its owner. Across the street, about ten yards up the road, a woman strained to hold the leash of her lunging black-and-white hellhound. The creature was as desperate as Donald Trump would be having learned McDonald’s was closing in five minutes and he hadn't had his daily Happy Meal.

 

The park is surprisingly huge. I haven't been there without seeing dogs everywhere. Despite its apparent lack of an official name, it is incredibly busy. Many people choose to walk their dogs here, especially given the lack of sidewalks in the surrounding area and the large number of kids who drive around thinking they are Vin Diesel.

 

It also has its eccentricities. For instance, there are two owls who will absolutely ruin your day if you happen to be nearby when they are rearing owlets. Wooden, horse-like traffic barriers sit near each of the nesting trees—you know the ones I mean, right? The white and orange barriers with the big flashing yellow lights on one end.

The weirdest thing about the park, which used to be a neighborhood before the airport expanded, is the remnants left behind. It must be what Chernobyl is like, many years later: trees, brush, and grass gradually erasing the obvious signs of humanity. Still, when my giant dog isn't dragging me across the fields, I can see bits and pieces of old roads, house foundations, stairs, and basements in plain sight. One stone structure even looks like a sepulcher. I am sure if I were a teenager, I would have walked a date through here at dusk and told them a story of murder and mayhem that resulted in that grave. Sounds like me—a natural bullshit artist.

 

Anyway, the park is not small. It has a soccer field, baseball fields, and many trees and paths. It also has disc golf. Yes, disc golf; you read that right the first time. There has not been a day that I have gone to walk Willow where there aren't people playing disc golf, often in groups of four or more.

I see them often because, rather than walking the concrete paths, Willow and I always venture down these darker trails, where a vast variety of evergreens coexist with maples, birches, and who knows what else. Golden leaves are everywhere on the ground, and as we explore, Willow gets the leaves stuck on the bottom of her hind paws—nature’s spurs, somehow appropriate as we explore these western woods.

The park is always busy with kids playing organized baseball, soccer, lacrosse—maybe field hockey too, I dunno. The soccer field is used every weeknight until 10 p.m. So many dog walkers, mothers, and grandmothers with their precious joys are a frequent sight. Old men playing disc golf alone is also not uncommon. What is uncommon is people not cleaning up after their dogs. All in all, it’s a great park.

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Leiney is home from Taiwan tomorrow. I am going to pick Jared and her up at the library from an airline with which I am unfamiliar. Their pictures make me wish I were traveling right now. Soon enough. The adventures they are having will build a lifetime of memories. I told her—it’s so weird we no longer have "long-distance" phone calls (and even stranger that she sounds like she could be in the next room when she calls)—how proud I was of them doing this for three years running now. They live life well, very well.

Abby has her last final at NTI tomorrow—yes, on Sunday—although she won't be done with classes until early December. She calls me regularly, breaking my solitude with her indomitable happiness. She is so happy; I can't adequately describe how that makes me feel or how proud I am of her. Her almost daily calls are perhaps the only reason I keep a personal phone.

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Despite living in the Miller Hermitage, I do love to host holiday feasts and family events. Jenny and I did it as a team, and we were good at it. Very good. So, I was planning Thanksgiving this year, and then learned that Leiney will be with Jared in Coeur d'Alene, supping with his family; Jane would be a party of one for a host of reasons. Abby remains in Connecticut through December 7. So, I canceled Thanksgiving, or it canceled me.

 

I'll watch the parade and miss the City. When we lived in Manhattan, we went to watch the balloons inflate the night before the parade and drank hot chocolate, hot toddies, or mulled wine to keep warm. That was so long ago, before kids. It was a different life. We were in the city at the right time of our lives.

 

One reason I love this park, it reminds me very much of Inwood Park, which was adjacent to our place in upper Manhattan. There, each night at the end of summer, a piper practiced from some unseeable spot—which always fascinated me because our view was of the entire park. I could see the rock where a plaque was placed to record the location where the Dutch gave the Lenape 60 guilders
for the island. I never did find the piper. 

 

Ten months a year, Dominican's played baseball in the park until after dark. My apartment had a perfect view of the field in the day. At night, it was dark as fuck as the field had no lights To the north was the East River and a forested section of park stood to its west side blocking light from cars crossing the Whitestone Bridge. You can bet they still played anyway, it was a passion.

 

The neighborhood had been through many transitions since the island was stolen. Ruth Westheimer and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar grew up there in the 1950s. It was at one time an exclusively or nearly exclusively Irish neighborhood. There was a convent on the other end of the park, which was large enough for dozens of nuns but which only held two, neither less than seventy. When we moved in, the neighborhood was largely Dominican. You could see the ethnic history on the firetrucks, which still had shamrocks on them and all-white crews, by the way. You could eat at a diner that was probably as old as the plaque on the rock, and it had weathered at least seventy-five seasons, probably more.

I digress. I loved that park, which had caves in it and old-growth trees—in Manhattan! It also had caves. I avoided caving in Inwood and am here to tell you that was likely a smart plan, although I'd like a T-shirt that says, "Inwood Spelunker." Aspirations. Anyway, all of the paths were made of blacktop. All of them. Which is a lot like this park in Burien.

 

That I don't live in the safest neighborhood, I knew. Shit, Gary Ridgeway dumped bodies not far from the park--a few blocks away at most. Nothing has improved it. The Larry's Market is long gone, the Red Apple. Drive-bys and burglaries are common. I got mean-mugged so hard yesterday walking to a espresso stand where

There is the western view to recommend it, I love this place.

the old Red Apple used to be, I thought the guy was about to draw down on me. There is shit going down here constantly. Police cars and helicopters love my neighborhood. That picture of police tape around the tree is real, I took it today. It made me nostalgic for the graffitied maple trees of that Upper Manhattan park. I don't know what happened here, but the tape wasn't up yesterday when we walked in the late afternoon.