It's Funny How Things Can Change but Not Change at the Same Time

I know I said my next post would be about the history of Hylton Hall, but I simply haven't had the time to do the research. Work has been keeping me busy and wearing me out physically, but I will get to it. Maybe tonight before I go to bed, who knows.

This post, however, isn't necessarily historical. A few thoughts have merged in my mind tonight and it reminded me of something I feel worth sharing.

A year or so ago, I red an article in the Register & Bee about residents in Forest Hills complaining about the projected extension of the Riverwalk Trail through Ballou Park. I've mentioned before, I'm sure, that I grew up in that part of Forest Hills. Ballou Park was my backyard. In my younger days (God, am I really referring to 15 or so years ago as my younger days...eek!), I would have been thrilled at having access to the Riverwalk trail from my backyard. I mean, I used to ride my bike from my house all the way to the train station and get on the trail there. Retrospectively, I'm surprised I didn't die. But that part of Ballou Park is logical for a trail considering the network of roads that exist back there.


What the article was about, however, was reminiscent of a story I've heard many times over the years. Residents on Linden Drive were complaining about the trail bringing, essentially, unwanted traffic behind their houses. I can understand that...sort of. Those old, worn out, closed off roads provided peace to my street. And you can be sure we'd all go running for houses if we saw a car back there. Sure, people would wander through, but there was relative peace most of the time. My friends and I would play back there on fallen trees, ride our bikes on the road. If we were lucky, we could ride our bikes on "The Circle." That, however, was the farthest we were allowed to really explore. Mainly because it was the farthest away that we could get where we could be seen from my house. My neighbor's mom covered the upper part of the park.


I got some amusement out of the article, though, because something incredibly similar happened around 1980. You see, there is a reason why there are roads back there. When Ballou Park opened, some 100 or so years ago, they were open to traffic. On Sunday afternoons, people would take leisurely drives through Ballou Park in what was dubbed "the Sunday Motorcade."


By 1980, the residents of that side of Linden Drive were getting into their 60s and 70s. The noise of the Sunday Motorcade was becoming a nuisance. My father said the first time he ever went to my grandparents house in the late 70s, it was a constant succession of cars all afternoon. And, so, the residents petitioned to have the roads closed to traffic...and the rest is history. Well, at least until recently.


I could not, for the life of me, figure out why no one made that connection. But then it dawned on me: not a single person on Linden Drive whose house backs up to the park has lived there for than 15 years or so. It was the same argument, but a different time and different people. And it seems that no one even knew that the deteriorating pavement was left unkempt for some 30 years because no one on that stretch of Linden Drive wanted to deal with a disturbance.


There is my little random tid-bit for the night. It's nothing special, nothing important. Just something I wanted to write down.