Keeping the Park Clean
I noticed the cars as Abbye and I entered the park via our usual morning route. We enter at the northeast corner; the playground and lone picnic table are at the southwest corner, about 150 yards or so away.
It's not unusual for one or two cars to be parked on the street around 8:00 a.m. A few people drive to the park to walk their dogs; others drop the kids off at school and then come to the park for their morning exercise. But, after five years of this routine, I have a pretty good feel for which cars are regulars and which ones...don't belong.
This morning, there were a couple of sedans and a bright red pickup, none of which I recognized. As Abbye and I strolled down the sidewalk, heading counterclockwise around the park, I noticed a couple of guys of indeterminant age sitting at the concrete picnic table. Another pickup pulled up, and the driver got out and started walking toward the table, and a fourth guy got out of one of the other cars and joined him.
We walked on around to the west end of the park and eventually passed close enough to tell that the guys were probably high school aged, and they seemed to be meditating or praying. Or something. Whatever they were doing, they were keeping their heads down and their voices low.
Abbye and I rounded the second turn and were now walking east, were about 20 yards south of the group of four, and I could see them passing something around, a visual confirmation of what I thought I whiffed while on the west side of the playground. (What can I say? I was in college in the early 70s.)
Now, I understand that some people consider the smoking of marijuana to be harmless, and that kids getting high before class is just one of those youthful rebellions that mark our culture. I don't happen to agree, especially when the activity is taking place in broad daylight in a public park that bumps up next to an elementary school playground. Regardless, this is my neighborhood and my park and I'm not going to turn a blind eye to such activities.
But...what to do? I wasn't interested in a physical confrontation; that was unlikely anyway, given the steady traffic along the side street. But there had to be a good way to let them know that they weren't as circumspect as they believed.
Almost without thinking about it, as I passed the group at the picnic table I turned around and began walking backwards down the sidewalk, ostensibly watching Abbye who was dawdling at her usual snail's pace along that stretch of the park. However, I was actually staring at the group and my attention was eventually rewarded as I made eye contact with the member of the quartet who was facing east. As soon as I caught his eye, I opened my cellphone, put it to my right ear (the one closest to them...I didn't want them to miss the act) and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. I intentionally looked away from the group and toward the cars that were parked just in front of me, and pointed my left hand in their general direction, as if I was...what? Well, what do you think they thought I was doing, pointing at their cars and talking on the cellphone?
Yeah, I was running a bluff on them, taking advantage of their natural paranoia in a situation like this. As soon as it dawned on them that I was probably giving their license plate numbers to the police, they scattered like quail, walking as fast as possible without actually running, quickly climbing into their respective vehicles and driving off. Quite carefully, I might add; after all, they were in a school zone.
I haven't seen them again and I don't expect to, at least not at our neighborhood park. They've probably just found another meeting spot. But I hope that wherever they go, they'll encounter more citizens who are intent on keeping their parks clean. None of us can clean everything, but we can take care of our own little corners...and that begins to add up to something significant.
"I don't happen to agree, especially when the activity is taking place in broad daylight in a public park that bumps up next to an elementary school playground. Regardless, this is my neighborhood and my park and I'm not going to turn a blind eye to such activities."
Absolutely 100% right on, Eric!
You took the words right out of my mouth (so to speak).
No matter what anybody says, that's how the rot always starts: with people tolerating something fairly "harmless". Soon they're constantly hanging around. After awhile, there's a whole bunch of them hanging around. Then they're buying and selling at the tables.
You definitely did the right thing.
Ummm...
You've probably already thought of it, but I'll mention it just the same.
Watch your back, eh?
Really, Eric. I mean that.
Drug users can be an incredibly vindictive bunch. In their subculture, you're a "snitch" who (almost literally) "dropped a dime" on them, which is a capital offense to that crowd.
They might be lying low for a couple of days, before some payback. Since you're not planning on being Midland's version of Paul Kersey, please be careful.
Posted by: Mr. Freen at October 4, 2005 01:12 AMDang. As the story began I was hoping maybe these guys were actually meeting to clean up the park. How cool would that have been? Too bad.
Nice bluff, bro. That was precious.
Posted by: Jim at October 4, 2005 06:18 AMIt is interesting that something as local as what is happening in your city park by the high school is read about across the world, from latitudes high to low.
Although you have taken the sitemeter off your blog, or made it invisible, it is still tracking hits, and displays them on a map of the globe. I stored it in my favorites so I look once in awhile. See link.
The last 100 visits include Australia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (in the Caribbean), the island of Mauritius (off Madagascar), northern Manitoba, Canada, Iran, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Italy, England, France, Thailand, and coast to coast of the USA. The mix varies as the composition of the roster of the last 100 hits rolls forward, but you are getting some exposure, man.
Love your blog.
Posted by: Larry S. at October 4, 2005 08:28 AMLinda, thanks for the encouragement. I think we need to be cautious in responding to such situations; what I did isn't necessarily the right thing for everyone to do (see Mr. Freen's comment)...but there's always something we can do.
Mr. Freen, I'm sure you know me well enough to realize that I did a quick risk assessment before doing anything so obvious as what I tried. Of course, one can't predict human nature with certainty, but I was comfortable with the odds that these were kids who knew better and who didn't pose any kind of ongoing threat.
Jim, I'd like to be able to share more positive stories, but I can only report what I see. However, I will say that I do see folks walking around the park who go out of their way to pick up the litter that others leave behind (I've been known to do that myself, from time to time), so it's not outside the realm of possibility.
Larry, don't be too smitten by the international audience. Most of them are stumbling across the site via search results and it's doubtful that they're sticking around to read very much on the blog, or ever return. I'm a lot more interested in those of you who, for whatever reasons and however few in number, keep coming back here intentionally...especially when you leave such uplifting comments! ;-)
Posted by: Eric at October 4, 2005 08:46 AMThis is vigilantism at its finest, Eric! You are just like Clint Eastwood, with a cell phone. "Go ahead, make my day." :-)
Posted by: Gwynne at October 4, 2005 02:21 PMYou are just like Clint Eastwood
Heh. More like Woody Allen...
Posted by: Eric at October 4, 2005 02:24 PMGood job, but I would have no compunction about calling the cops. Having done drug counseling for the criminal justice system and knowing the mindset, a little close call will not deter them.
Posted by: Wallace-Midland Texas at October 4, 2005 02:26 PMWallace, good point, but here's why I didn't do that. To all appearances, they were doing what I thought they were doing, but I couldn't be 100% sure. And with four guys passing around one joint, the evidence would have been long gone before the police showed up. And, finally, I didn't want them piling into their cars and tearing through a school zone just before school in order to attempt a getaway. So I chose the less traumatic route.
Perhaps it was a bad call, all things considered, but that's where I came down on it at that point.
Posted by: Eric at October 4, 2005 02:30 PMAbout the publisher
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Hooray for you! What quick thinking and very creative. I'll bet those kids are going to be looking over their shoulders for a few days.
I agree that we shouldn't just turn a blind eye to such activities. So, I hope that if I am ever in a similar situation, that I will be able to get the message across as well as you did.
Posted by: Linda at October 4, 2005 12:07 AM