Foot traffic

The world continues to get about on foot as the mild Spring drags on and people need to get out of their homes to exercise, one of our few remaining freedoms and pleasures. This morning I was out on the porch drinking coffee and easing into the day when I saw someone in a red track suit with the hood up come down the path next to the house. It looked like she was wearing black gloves. This is a rare look. She went down the path and out into the park, looking out at the lake. Though she was partially obscured by a tree I'm 95% certain she was doing Tai Chi. So it was most likely an Asian woman from Booker Creek Apartments or the condo complex. We get a lot of visitors from that cohort in the park.

As the weather warms up, volume in the park is going to pick up and it's going to become a policing challenge. We've already seen some of that. The park has been technically closed for everything but running, walking, biking, swimming (for exercise, not hanging out and splashing), and boating. But we've occasionally had people on blankets and groups of people hanging at the beach. A couple of weeks back I went down and kicked a bunch of people out just because it was ridiculous. About half a dozen of them were lower-wealth people of color. I have pretty high confidence that they weren't members, but I didn't play the "are you a member?" card, I just said the park was closed because of coronavirus and the shelter-in-place ordinance. Which is true.

The next day there was another large group down there, 20-year old college boys. And I went down and kicked them out too. One of them said his family was a member, but they weren't, but that's a story for another day. They do live around here.

The main point is that it is tough to police a private park and private space when you are not police, but we have to, because ultimately it's a small park.

But in the shadow of black people getting shot and killed for walking and jogging through neighborhoods it's tricky. The other day I heard some music coming from somebody's boom box or phone or something and I thought "Ughh, I hope it's not that asshole next door (again, another day, new neighbor). It turned out it was from an African-American guy out walking his dogs, just listening to music as he goes. I was happy to see it wasn't the jackass kid next door. Then yesterday I saw the African-American guy again, out walking listening to tunes. All good.

Part of me wants to introduce myself to him so I can say hello when he comes by again. I say hello to a lot of people going by. But I don't want to make the guy uncomfortable. Probably he'll just remain the guy with two dogs who listens to music.