Ya Gotta Have Faith
We moved across the street from what is now the new Ballard Commons and Skate Park just as it was starting up in-earnest construction back in late August. It has been noisy, and a muddy eyesore, but incredibly cool as well. Liv started referring to it as "our park" months ago.
The pulled off the fences just before the end of the year, and though it has been wet and the grass will be fenced off for quite a while yet, it is already a great addition to the neighborhood. It has been adopted quickly, and there are always people strolling through. I dig it, having the type of common space I love cities for directly across from our apartment.
And I like the skate bowl, I really do. I liked the fact that the powers that be didn't hassle the few kids that snuck in for early tastes after the bowl was first poured a couple months back. I'm proud that civic dollars have created something that is needed and moves to include this subset of kids.
But, I gotta tell ya, I've been worried as late. Old as this makes me feel, as much as I can see liver spots bursting upon the back of my hands as I type, it was the music. The fact that taggers started hitting the bowl early bothered me, but it was inevitable. I just hadn't, for some reason, seen this coming.
I'm all for that music the kids play, with its thrashing and punking and whatnot, but it has been so loud, and of the particularly aurally assaulting variety, that I began to dread the coming of summer, and always-open windows, and larger groups of skaters. The old man in me wanted to believe they would be good neighbors, and play what they want but not so loud I have to turn up my own radio to hear Softy bitching about the Huskies. I let the doubt creep in that I would become set against the music that was to come from the bowl.
And then I get home this evening, and as I get closer to the park, can't quite place what I am hearing. I turn the corner and it's... The Motherfuckin' Man in Black. And not this new shit where he sings grunge tunes, but teh old stuff, the good stuff, what I think of when I hear the name Johnny Cash. Ring of Fire, Understand Your Man, Jackson.
Little punks won me over tonight. At least the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps that is something I should be giving more freely than I do.
The pulled off the fences just before the end of the year, and though it has been wet and the grass will be fenced off for quite a while yet, it is already a great addition to the neighborhood. It has been adopted quickly, and there are always people strolling through. I dig it, having the type of common space I love cities for directly across from our apartment.
And I like the skate bowl, I really do. I liked the fact that the powers that be didn't hassle the few kids that snuck in for early tastes after the bowl was first poured a couple months back. I'm proud that civic dollars have created something that is needed and moves to include this subset of kids.
But, I gotta tell ya, I've been worried as late. Old as this makes me feel, as much as I can see liver spots bursting upon the back of my hands as I type, it was the music. The fact that taggers started hitting the bowl early bothered me, but it was inevitable. I just hadn't, for some reason, seen this coming.
I'm all for that music the kids play, with its thrashing and punking and whatnot, but it has been so loud, and of the particularly aurally assaulting variety, that I began to dread the coming of summer, and always-open windows, and larger groups of skaters. The old man in me wanted to believe they would be good neighbors, and play what they want but not so loud I have to turn up my own radio to hear Softy bitching about the Huskies. I let the doubt creep in that I would become set against the music that was to come from the bowl.
And then I get home this evening, and as I get closer to the park, can't quite place what I am hearing. I turn the corner and it's... The Motherfuckin' Man in Black. And not this new shit where he sings grunge tunes, but teh old stuff, the good stuff, what I think of when I hear the name Johnny Cash. Ring of Fire, Understand Your Man, Jackson.
Little punks won me over tonight. At least the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps that is something I should be giving more freely than I do.
posted by JJisafool at 6:29 PM
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