January 10th, 2008

It's been so lovely out that I decided to go for a walk in the park near my parents' house. The playground parts are totally changed since I last played there, a million years ago. Back then, everything was old, weathered wood and scratchy concrete, a playground in shades of brown and grey. (And probably a lawsuit waiting to happen, now that I'm thinking about the giant splinters that peeled off underfoot and the way the wooden towers swayed on windy days) Now, the playground is bright and obviously designed with an eye on safety - a far cry from what I remember.

But the rest of the park looks much the same. Grass (withered and muddy now that it's winter), trees, a few benches and picnic tables, and then the lake. Or the pond. Or the inlet, probably. In any case, the water - across which, you can see the control tower for JFK Airport. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would sit by the water and watch the planes take off and land until it grew dark and the police chased us off to close up the park. I loved that.


A little reminiscing and a few quick photos (including the one above), in spite of the wind kicking up from the water, making my eyes tear as I tried to line up a shot of an incoming plane. It was a nice interlude in the middle of my day. Half an hour or so of playground-and-plane watching, then back to my regularly scheduled programming...