It's 9AM

Where's Your Brother?

Chris Lowry

Jul 06, 2023

“Did you think that through?” he asked.

Papaw asked it a lot.

Thinking it through was his specialty.

Not mine, really.

As much as I like to think, or at least like to think I’m capable of it, I am first, a man of action.

Even as a boy.

I do a quick plan, aim, fire.

Which is always better than fire, aim.

But…

Quick plans don’t always consider consequences.

Not all of them.

They don’t consider many alternatives either.

Though I think a short study of human nature would show most humans react in the same way to the same thing, so if you’ve seen it once, you can predict with a reasonable certainty of how it’s going to go down again.

Human nature.

There was a park on the North Side of town called Oakland Park.

A nice little space built around a tiny lake, with an amazing detail for little kids.

A fifteen foot steel rocket ship with a long steel slide.

The rocket body was made of metal strips bolted to platforms.

Each platform was just high enough for a kid to stand up in, with holes drilled into each floor and a steel ladder to climb up.

You even had to access the rocket from the bottom and climb up each floor to reach the steel slide.

A big storm rolled through and took out a few ancient oaks that were part of the Park’s namesake.

Which exposed the big steel slide to the blazing summer sun.

Three months out of the year, unless it was cloudy, no one could use the rocket slide.

It baked under the sunlight to a toasty temperature hot enough to fry an egg.

Or the backs of little kid’s thighs as they tried to slide.

And someone did, at least once a day every summer.

Some kids made it.

Their parents put them in Toughskin jeans and they braved the toasty bottoms to say they could do it.

We even tried it once, but the slide gods demanded their sacrifices and we paid for it with blistered skin and a lesson learned.

The slide disappeared a few years after that, and the rocket was just a climbing tower.

The holes to climb from floor to floor were small enough so adults couldn’t fit through them, though skinny teens could and did.

After all the kids left the park and twilight settled across the tiny lake, the teens would take over and the rocket would start smoking like it was about to take off.

With smoke that smelled like skunk.

That could be part of the reason people stopped going to the parks as much around Pine Bluff.

Now they want a Go Kart track built out by the casino, because the number one thing residents ask for are “activities” for people in town.

Despite…

Regional Park along the lake, with an amphitheater, a kid’s park, motocross dirt track, eight softball fields plus walking and hiking trails and a swimming beach.

Or 24^th Street Park with tennis courts and basketball courts and a baseball backstop beside soccer fields.

Or Oakland Park, with the memory of a rocket slide, and a new all plastic and wood play area beside the tiny lake.

Or the sixteen pocket parks that have benches and playgrounds and are walking distance from most neighborhoods.

And more churches per square foot than most southern towns all hungry for members to come through the door and take charge.

That’s part of the problem with a lot of today, I think.

Everybody wants new, and exciting (if you can call go karts on a fixed track exciting) and shiny.

It’s a short term fix, that I think could be solved with better marketing because people are afraid of the parks because of something that happened in other cities. (violence)

And because it’s hot and the news spends a good portion of the summer trying to make people afraid of going outside.

(Because if they stay inside, they watch TV, and if they watch TV, they can charge for advertising)

At least they’ve thought it through.

Are you an action taker or thought maker?

9AM

It's 9AM

Where's Your Brother?

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