Under the Caveman Bridge, Week 3: Back to the 50's

7/26/14

I was going to set up as usual just inside Riverside Park, but the West entrance was blocked off.  A couple of gentlemen came up in a cart and I asked them if all the entrances were blocked.  Indeed they were; a classic car show had taken over the park for the day.  But they said that I could clean litter from under the Bridge.

They had opened the entrance to the skate park on the other side of 6th Street/Williams Highway, and the Boy Scouts were collecting $3 for parking in it, apparently anywhere west of the Caveman Bridge.  The grass there is not watered, so parking couldn't damage it.

Indeed, apart from some mowing and hedging, it is totally unmaintained, and I discovered another patch of star thistle alongside the beginning of the bike/pedestrian path under the Bridge.  I got to thinking that the city needs to aggressively maintain the disc golf course, not use it for occasion parking.  Disc golfers are a messy lot even in a well-maintained area.  Ugly landscaping gives them more excuse for messiness, and maintenance workers less reason to do a good job.  No one likes to maintain ugly.

The Boy Scouts waived away my money, since I would be working.  I offered them some of my lemon water and grapes, and gave them leaflets.  Since I was parking in that end of the park, I had to clean it first, at least along the street and path.  

I quickly found a mess of auto glass where someone had apparently smashed a window, and went back for the broom and dustpan and cleaned it up.  Then I got to pulling trash out of the ivy and bushes to the south of my parking space, and kept going to the corner of Park Street.  

There were 3 bottles smashed along the sidewalk and in the parking lot around the spa place, requiring sweeping.  The owner ignored it as he drove out over it with a hot tub, just as he ignores the other litter and the weeds that infest his pavements.  But I was able to give a leaflet or two to people who saw me working on the glass.

I did all that even before walking the bridge, I think.  After cleaning the top, where I found a bit less trash behind the parapet, mostly old and grown over, I proceeded to the stairs, the tree, and then down to the eating area by the river to get the big trash.  

That's where I ran into Chelsea Bledsoe's brother, who offered to help.  I regret that I forgot his first name, forgetting to fix it in my memory by saying it three times or writing it down.  But the young Mr. Bledsoe helped me for about an hour and was good company. 

It being Back to the 50’s, I decided to skip the 7^th Street Bridge after my mid-afternoon break, but after seeing how dead the park was getting, I went there after all, cleaned the litter from the top, and got the last 2 sections of detritus on the East side.