YOU, ME AND THE PARKS

What a gorgeous day. One of the best yet. The best way to ruin a perfectly warm and breezy mid May day is to hear people complaining about you through an open window, ten feet away - for no other reason than to complain and sound stupid. Or you shut all the blinds and listen to some extremely depressing music. Or you meet a person for the first time ever and they tell you an ignorant ethnic joke. Take your pick. All three choices are as solid as a soup sandwich, that is if you want to snuff out a chillin' happy mood. Anyways, by coincidence really (or is it synchronicity?), on this beautifully sunny day - I decided to go for a short, relaxing rouler a la bicyclette. I headed north for a short while, then west, then north (for about 10 seconds) until I turned around and headed east along the river for a good ten minutes. Along the way I thought of some things, saw some things, felt the zephyr and the sun and then thought of some more things. Taking in the view I noticed (actually it was hard no to) how high the grass and dandelions have grown and, how even on such a nice day how little people were out enjoying the city's parks (This is most likely because the river is unappealing both in its appearance, attractiveness and smell). I wondered in my head who is most greatly affected by this lack of landscape hygiene. Certainly the citizens and residents of Windsor are. For many different reasons. I can't lay in the grass without fear of getting lost, bit or bowled over by a wayward runner or kid rolling down a hill. There's no more fresh grass smell, working fountains (both for viewing and drinking from), or getting out of the way for city worker's driving golf carts too fast down the path. The city's image is falling deeper and deeper into an unavoidable abyss of desperation, despair and ugliness. But, if less and less people are frequenting our city's only peaceful and pretty oasis' - who's paying the price? (or not getting paid at all?)That's when I rode by the guy 'not' selling fries from his little trailer at his usual spot down by the river. That's when I saw the Dickey Dee dude sitting beside an overflowed trash can double-fisting and drowning his sorrows in a Drumstick and baseball glove ice cream (the purple one with gum baseball in the middle). That's when I rode by only about 7 people fishing along that one stretch of the river(I don't have the numbers, but there's usually way more). That's when I rode by an empty parking lot and abandoned sculpture park. These are the one's who are feeling the strike's pinch. You me and the parks. Ow!