The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

When we first pow-wowed about retaking Hutchison Park away from the punk kids who used the hidey-hole for their illicit goings-on, I met with the woman who ran the Island County Parks. Me and a fellow artist who was also involved with myself in transforming the Old Blue Building by the tennis courts, another project with County. We had Big Visions back then, let me tell you, a merry band of artists who might do aesthetic make-overs of parks and ugly county buildings. We’d built the Visitor Center and Art Park, we’d established a public art program for the schools, we were on our high horses and hoo boy, we thought the future was so bright we bought shades.

This would have been 2007. A few of us gathered in the overgrown parking lot of the park to brainstorm how we might improve the little 5 acres, make it the Crown Jewel of the South End park system. Okay, the only jewel in the South End park system. We discussed some tree cutting, blackberry removal, possible new plantings, grass seeding, picnic tables, the usual park management stuff. At some point it was made clear that a perimeter fence would be necessary, by code apparently, chain link. Thinking out loud I wondered if maybe we could install our own fence, an art fence of sorts, maybe something that would de-institutionalize the thing and my fellow artist asked if we did that, could funds that might have been used for the cyclone fence be allocated to our fence.

Maybe it was a bad day for the Park Chief, I don’t know. Things had been going uneventfully enough, ideas thrown out, some rejected, some considered, the usual give and take, but all of us there to make improvements. My cohorts in the South End String Band had agreed to be caretakers, lawnmowers, tree trimmers and the like. The art crowd would throw in. All in all a fine collaboration, maybe even a paradigm for government partnering with the community. But the mention of money, the crass notion of it, the grimy reference, well, Ms. Park Lady came unglued. ‘You’re all alike,’ she fairly shouted, ‘always looking for the money. Well, that’s not how it works. We’ll put in a chain link fence and that’s that.’

My artist pal was stunned into near stuttering incoherence, tried to make it clear she wasn’t grubbing for the pesos, she only meant …. But our Park Lady was only cranking up. No, she was sick and tired of this game of trying to profit off them, sick … and … tired …of these self serving ….

‘Whoa’, I said, hands up in a gesture of Stop This. ‘Let me get something straight here. We’re the ones volunteering our time. We’re the ones not being paid to stand here right now. We’re the ones who will be mowing and landscaping. All we asked was would there be some possibility of using money that was intended for park upgrades for maybe art that would substitute. It’s done all the time in the public art realm. Same budget, just pay for materials. If that’s your idea of greed ….’

It was. That was 16 years ago. We’ve added some sculpture, we’ve planted a few shrubs and trees, we’ve maintained that park mowing and bucking fallen trees, created new trails, added a phone booth little library and since then we’ve never seen the Park Chief again. Okay with me. I’m a little busy grubbing for money elsewhere.

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