Abandoned Park

Miwok
park-abandoned and neglected, uncared for and rejected, ignored and forgotten- laid
there, rusting away while many just walked right passed it only to take a short
glimpse at it and continue on their way. It was not awful to look at before,
but its condition now makes it hard to say it was a great park to be in long
ago. You could hardly call it a park, since the size of it made others look
like a city; however, it was still considered a park and a park it remains to
be. I remember the endless summer days I would spend there, hanging with
friends while telling stories amongst ourselves. The place to associate, I
spent the majority of my childhood outdoors in that park, conveniently placed
right across our house. Crossing the street, I would walk on the trail put
before me, walking its poorly made, pebbled, crumbled cement path filled with
cracks, along with passing the dark green wooden benches and worn out metal
light posts with the scraped dark green trash cans chained to them for
precautions. I would look around me only to find many kids like me playing
sports and having picnics with their families. I would follow this trail until
I reached the sandbox; this is where the true fun would begin.
I would play in that sandbox, enjoying
the only two options it offered you, a shiny metal slide or the classic swing
set; for you can’t really have a park without a swing set, equipped with a seat
for toddlers and a seat for the big kids. Higher, higher, higher – I flew into
the air like an eagle, a plane, a kid on hallucinogens. The peach colored sand
felt good to lie in and was smooth and comfortable enough to sleep in.
Contentment filled the environment and I enjoyed every moment of what I thought
of as Peace Park.
Families spread out on the soft,
freshly cut green grass, as they either spent their time playing a game of
catch and other activities or relaxed watching the blue sky with its resident,
the sun. The park also supplied clean, durable metal tables and tiny adequate
barbeques for families to feast on hotdogs and hamburgers. Once satisfied with
their meal, they could continue on with activities or set the trip for home; if
a kid was fortunate enough he would beg his parents to stay and they would say,
“Only little while longer and then we have to go.” So when the families left
the park it was late in the afternoon, and the wind would blow a breeze that
kept the leaves mobile, transitioning to the ending scene of the sun setting on
a job well done for Miwok Park. It was a park of happiness; it was a paradise
that had all the aspects it needed to make it a park of happiness.
As time went by, things changed like
they always do, and its neglect caught up with it. The park is no longer what I
had thought of it all those years ago and what it is now is a park of
abandonment. The trail is still as crummy as ever, but now with litter that
consists of empty crushed up bags of chips and cigarette butts, scattered all
over it. The benches have chipped paint, and rusty metal legs to maintain their
stability. My beloved sandbox is nothing more than an area surrounded with a
cement border covered with moss containing muddy sand, over used with child
footsteps with weeds growing out of its uneven lumpy surface. The slide no
longer has its shiny appeal to it, being covered with dirty sand violently
scratching away the little glow it has left in it when reflecting the sun’s
light at its shiniest. The swings are deteriorating and I’m personally afraid
to try them out anymore; one definitely won’t find me launching off like an
eagle on those. For now there was death and waste and decay, and it has
remained this way even till these days.
Nowadays, there are no families relaxing
at the park or playing any of those games I once admired them for playing.
Nowadays, there are no people lying on the grass looking at the blue sky and
its sun because the grass was dead, muddy, and flooded with overgrown spiky
weeds and its unsuitable neglected state seemed to match the weather around it,
so the sun stayed inside its house of gray clouds. Nowadays, the tables and
barbeques once filled with famished families are covered with graffiti
consisting of inappropriate pictures and symbols not even to be mentioned among
wholesome ears, especially children. Nowadays, all that is what I once thought
of as Peace Park is gone. Miwok Park seems abandoned, lifeless, hopeless.
At one time the park
had a joyful path to follow leading straight to a sandbox filled with
entertaining entities that took the time of the young as they live their lives
in a luxurious area guarded by a cement barrier of solid insulation from the
outside world; presently it is just an area that is surrounded by a cement
border that serves more as a safety restriction of decay warning not to enter a
desolate waste land of weeds and muddy sand that now resembles a desert, led up
by a trash invested trail of bumps and cracks. There use to be people shouting in
joy loud enough to make anybody who was not at the park grab their sports
equipment and their hotdog buns and head out to the place where everybody was
having the time of their lives making memories that stick with you your whole
life under the beautiful blue sky; presently it is uninhabited by any sort of
life besides the mold that grows around the place and silence is the only sound
coming from it making anybody who was not at the park grab their T.V. remote to
see what is on, while they eat their T.V. dinner waiting for each tiny useless
moment to pass on the couch, under the isolation of their dark room. Miwok Park
has escaped me, and everyone else for that matter.

By Emilio G.