Taking Back the Park

Right around the time we bought our house, a little playground was built just a block away. It's been the perfect distance to walk to with the kids and we've enjoyed having it there.

Unfortunately, a few weeks ago when we arrived there, the park had been completely trashed. It was disgusting-- there was lip gloss and mascara smeared all over the equipment, and of course, there was the obligatory gross graffiti (complete with not very accurate drawings of male genitalia). It was so sad. And while we were there, a bunch of high schoolers wandered past us and then sat in the woods nearby smoking. Ick. I was nearly sick about the whole thing (and glad that Bentley can't read yet!).

The next day we went around the same time, and there was a different group of teenagers hanging out who promptly left the moment we arrived. They'd added new, also gross graffiti.

Craig was furious. He declared that as soon as we got home we were calling the Parks Dept. to come and clean this up and we would continue coming by the park at the same time every day to try and chase these punks away.

Of course, we forgot to call the Park Department. But we did go to the park again the next day. As we got nearer we could see that there were a bunch of people standing around, but it wasn't until we gotten a bit closer that we realized that two of the people were wearing blue shirts and black pants: COPS! Apparently we weren't the only ones upset at what was going on! Some neighbors whose yard backs up to the park had been spying on the kids with binoculars, and when they saw them smoking pot, they called the cops. Awesome. I love people like that. Not only did they report what was going on, the neighbors continued watching and were able to tell the police where all the marijuana had been hidden. We got there right as the police escorted one of the kids away. A Park Ranger was there, too, so once things had calmed down, Craig pointed out the graffiti to him and he was just as angry about it as we had been and promised to get it cleaned up right away. He also gave us a direct number to call, should it happen again.

I went back a couple days later, just me and the kids. The graffiti was gone. There were no hostile teenagers. The park is ours again. And I'm happy about that.