Prospect: A Year in the Park

Aha!

Interminable March ended in drizzle. Except for the golden trumpets blaring behind the wrought-iron fence at Prospect Park's boundary, it still looked like winter at first glance.

Down in the mud, though, things are greening up. Tufts of grass and tiny weed seedlings are sprouting. These pretty little rosettes of heart-shaped leaves are coming up under the pine trees; can anyone identify them?







And here, amid maple and ginkgo leaf litter, was a fine clutch of "aha's." Others may know them as maple seedlings. When I was very little, I plucked one of the zillions of them poking through the lawn and flower beds as my father began the spring gardening. I guess I said "aha!" and my dad, in the greatest stroke of labor-saving psychology since Tom Sawyer and that fence, told me that I had to say "aha!" loudly each time I picked one. He confessed years later to feeling a bit sneaky as he observed me bent over like a rice-harvesting peasant, barking "aha! aha!" Anyway, I still call them that (and yes, it's a good idea to pick or mow them off before they get their first set of true leaves).

First Quarter Interim Report: On New Year's day, I dared myself to visit Prospect Park every day and find (and share) at least one cool thing on every trip. After three months of (almost) daily excursions, I've met brides and skaters, coots and tigers, haunted trees and heroic monuments; on the days I didn't make it over the fence, I time-traveled through online archives to meet Victorian lady cyclists, unsavory shepherds, lost souls, and ice-skating baseball players. Oh, and I started using the park to train for a 100-mile bike ride. Thanks to everyone who has visited, commented or linked. Spring, summer, and fall, anyone?

Groovin'...

...on a Sunday afternoon.

As the circus crowd let out onto the park's East Drive, I had to dodge cars, the "trolley,"* and lots of families in high spirits. Many carried souvenir light sabers and cotton candy, and a few had tiger masks.

* Original name of Brooklyn Dodgers: The Trolley Dodgers.

As I cycled slowwwly up the Dreaded Hill, something marvelous happened: I passed another cyclist. Okay, it was Bernie on a bicycle, but I passed him.

  Over in the Nethermead, a father and daughter put the cold wind to use with a kite, bringing back memories of my dad's earnest efforts at kite-flying up in the Poconos when I was little.

Good dads take kites very seriously, and somehow they manage to get them airborne and give us all the credit.

Real tigers

Now that the circus is ensconced, I was intrigued by the idea that there were elephants in Prospect Park. The circus encampment is highly visible and porous-looking; surely I could spy an elephant just by sneaking around the perimeter.

As I crept up alongside the hastily-constructed fence around the circus trailers, I felt like a naughty 8-year-old boy. Speaking of which, where are all the transgressive urchins of Brooklyn—home watching video games, when they should be scaling fences in search of a free peek under the big top?  I was pretty much alone in my pokings-about, a 50-year-old lady pursuing the work of the Little Rascals. Finally, amid the boring shuttered trailers, I found one with hay spilling out and two tiny white ponies munching. Nearby, some larger performers were also relaxing. I skedaddled with my camera after the tacky lace curtain in a trailer window moved and someone rapped angrily from within. I did not fancy running afoul of circus security, which was of the "man-mountain sharp-suited bouncer" variety.

However, I couldn't resist circling back for another look behind the blue tarp that shrouded the fence. As the emcee worked the happy crowd inside the tent ("Where you from? Brooklyn's in the house! Where you from? Harlem's in the house!") I heard some curt Spanish and a hair-raising chuffling sound. A few minutes earlier, the audience had been urged to "give it up" for some Colombian tiger trainers. Yes! Perched low in a tree, I craned my neck and saw them wheel a cage up to the ramp of a vented trailer right in front of me. There was a flash of orange and black flank, and then a snarl and roar. Not a cartoonish roar, but a casual, let-me-rip-your-face-off basso profundo, about six feet away from me. I just about fell out of my tree.

The crew, annoyed by me and the few other curious souls who had gathered outside the fence, snapped the vents down after three big cats were restored to their cages. I felt the guilty thrill of being a tiger paparazzi. This is the best shot I could manage through the fence, a nice tail-and-hind-legs shot.

Content with my forbidden glimpse of tigerosity (and having forgotten all about elephants), I followed a steep and unfamiliar path up above the Concert Grove. A young man with a German accent asked sheepishly, "How do I get to Eighth Avenue? I am sort of lost." I pointed him back in the direction of the setting sun, but had to confess I was pretty disoriented myself; down below was a deep forest and glinting lake, and it took me awhile to figure out that I was looking at the Lullwater. For those few minutes, I could have been in the Adirondacks. In the distance, a willow was greening up amid the bare trees; robins fluted overhead. Behind me, the strains of a gospel choir from the circus tent were borne over by the cold wind.

Walking home past the lake, I was struck by the fact that ducks are awfully interesting until one has recently seen a tiger.

Hibernaculum

Looking back at our house the day before yesterday, from within the park, I yearned to cycle home after just one circuit, to kiss off another ascent of the Dreaded Hill. I wanted my hibernaculum.

Isn't that a marvelous word? It sounds quasi-liturgical, like some sacred recess for holy men or relics. I found it in this article about "white nose syndrome," the mysterious ailment felling bats in upstate New York, reported in the New York Times with genuine poignancy:

Al Hicks was standing outside an old mine in the Adirondacks, the largest bat hibernaculum, or winter resting place, in New York State.

It was broad daylight in the middle of winter, and bats flew out of the mine about one a minute. Some had fallen to the ground where they flailed around on the snow like tiny wind-broken umbrellas, using the thumbs at the top joint of their wings to gain their balance.

All would be dead by nightfall. Mr. Hicks, a mammal specialist with the state's Environmental Conservation Department, said: "Bats don't fly in the daytime, and bats don't fly in the winter. Every bat you see out here is a 'dead bat flying,' so to speak."

That was how I felt: Dead Bat Flying. I fly poorly in the daytime, and not at all, if I can avoid it, in the winter. The afflicted bats, apparently, are scrawny specimens, with too little body fat to "arouse from their deep torpor."  I, too, am deeply torpid, but with plenty of body fat, and laboring around the park on my bicycle has so far yielded such minuscule progress towards strength and stamina that I'm sometimes ready to crawl back to my cave by my thumbs.

Yesterday I never made it to the park; instead, I cursed and struggled to get the bicycle into the car and over to the shop, where the kind people tweaked and goosed it up a little. (Pedal clips for more power. Battery-powered lights for night riding.) I stewed and mulled over whether to keep upgrading this lead-heavy hybrid or bite the bullet and trade up to a lighter one, all the while seeing red flashing dollar-danger-signs (You didn't sign on to spend a thousand dollars on this insanity!) By the time I got home, I may have turned fully into either a White Nose Bat or what author Anne Lamott calls Menopausal Death Crone; either way, there was nothing left for the scheduled training ride that night. In the park. In the dark. In the rain.

Sometimes, it is good to get right down into wind-broken umbrella state. There is nowhere to go but up then, and there's a certain peace in knowing that. If I stay in the hibernaculum, nothing will get better. If I go out in the park and keep going around, something's got to happen eventually. Right, guys?

Image: Bat Conservation International

Expect the unexpected

Some things are to be expected on a balmy spring bike ride.

First magnolia pops open on the East Drive.

First very pink tree blooms near Grand Army Plaza!

Forsythia riots near Prospect Park West.

Other things come as a surprise. How can I never have noticed:

...that there are cormorants on the lake?

...that you can see the Empire State Building at this angle through the arch at Grand Army Plaza?

...that 1984 Olympic track and field gold medalist Diane Dixon was honored with this worn-down "Park Dreams" sign, since despoiled by "Dingo" and "BG"? Dixon's quote about training in the park, "tired and exhausted but ultimately prepared...to become an Olympic champion," is a well-placed bit of inspiration at the foot of the Dreaded Hill (which I climbed twice without stopping, but so slowly that I swear my bike rolled backwards). Its condition also prompts meditation on the fleeting nature of sports fame.

Bonus Mammalian Media Whore: A grey squirrel, angling shamelessly for a photo op. In the background, note goose getting in on the act.

Buds and circuses

A very few brave twigs send out some early flowers in lemony yellow-green...

...and sometimes cherry-red.

Meanwhile, the circus has come to town at the Wollman Rink.

The blue peaked tents of the plucky African-American themed Universoul Circus have sprouted, along with some suitably raffish conveyances. There are hip-hop elephants, child contortionists from Guinea, and other marvels to be seen during their gig from March 26 through April 13, and ticket prices start at a gentle $17.

 

On the troupe's website, I enjoyed this candid story of their rocky start from founder Cedric Walker (a former promoter of the Jackson 5), because it sounded like something that would happen to our Walker family (well, if we tried to tame tigers):

Three weeks before the opening (in 1993), I paid a visit to the training facility. It was clear that the person we chose wasn't working out. After watching rehearsals all that flashed in my mind was possible the headlines: “FIRST BLACK CIRCUS. TIGER EATS TRAINER ON OPENING DAY.” So I fired the guy. I'm three weeks away from advertising this black lion tamer and I'm sitting in my office at 11 p.m. saying to myself, “Okay Cedric, you've really done it this time. Now you've got to go into the lion's cage.” I was attempting to convince myself that I could do it, when, thank you Jesus, I thought about my “crazy” cousin who lived with three 14 feet boa constrictors in his bedroom. I had a feeling he would be interested in the job. I called his home that night. By six the next morning, he had quit his job and was ready to join the circus.

The first show lost every penny. But the idea was successful…

TNT Update: Those of you riveted by the unfolding drama of my biking attire will be gratified to learn that I wore the stretchy-pants today (under another pair of sweatpants, since it felt like winter out), and they were surprisingly comfortable. However, even XL stretchy-pants are clearly designed for ladies with the body-fat level of a greyhound (and we'll leave it at that). The things I do to cure cancer.

 

It's for fun

That's what I keep telling myself about cycling in the park to train for the Montauk Century. But it has been cold, day after day, and there has been an avalanche of seasonal family chores and obligations, and then there is the matter of...pants.

As I found out on my first training jaunt in Prospect Park, sometimes there is a reason for Lycra. I found myself using my lack of Expensive Bicycling Attire as a reason to avoid riding in the cold. No insulated padded tights, Gore-Tex windbreaker, and prescription wraparound sunglasses? No can do! Then I would see some tough little Mexican dude zooming around on a rusty bike on a freezing night in a pair of cheap blue jeans, balancing a pizza on the handlebars, and feel like an idiot.

Finally, last week, I broke down and ordered some bike pants and shorts (with padding--yes, padded butt pants) from an online discounter. For a few glorious days, I had another perfect excuse: The pants had not arrived yet.










Well, this morning the pants arrived...and now I am paralyzed with fear about taking them out of the box. I've blown this morning (my only shot at the park all day) worrying about the contents of that box. I just have to convince myself that the effect will be more akin to, well, this.

"Chancho. When you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It's for fun."
                                           —"Nacho Libre"

 

Eastertide

Hyacinths aren't blooming in Brooklyn yet, but potted ones were flourishing at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket, their waxy perfume a harbinger of spring.














And today, there were bunnies! Two alarmed-looking rabbits hunkered down as if they'd been press-ganged for Easter duty.

I can see how this kind of close attention could be disconcerting.

    







Today's Greenmarket Dog of the Week: Not the Easter Beagle, but Daisy, a 7-year-old Jack Russell terrier. Not visible here: her one adorably speckled ear. Daisy is "not crazy," said her owner, but she still likes to jump on occasion.

A Friday called good

Walking into a powerful wind off the lake, I entered the park with the curious certainty that an image evocative of Good Friday would present itself to my camera. I headed for my mystical tree, whose trunk seems like a portal to the underworld. All was quiet within.

   Listening as the wind roared through the phragmites, I began to feel rather silly. What was I expecting to see, anyway—a man struggling to carry a wooden burden on his back?

I headed for home, along the southern periphery of the Parade Grounds.



As I prepared to step off the boundary of the park, camera stuck back into pocket, something prompted me to turn and look again.

"We neither suffer alone nor conquer alone nor go off into eternity alone. In Him we are inseparable..."

Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

Spring Flashback, 1899

The first day of Spring (well, the vernal equinox, anyway) was one of dazzling sun but roaring gales, making it hard to regret a missed park excursion. In the Lenten spirit of reparation, I offer this "day story" from the Brooklyn Eagle on March 13, 1899. (Although the earliest Spring equinox is March 19 for this and the previous millenium, the Eagle freely names the previous day as the "first day of spring"; did our more technical attachment to the vernal equinox come later in journalistic history, and if so, how did our forebears in the Gay Nineties set the date?) (Also note reference to the "bard of Prospect Park," showing that heavy-handed journalistic irony is nothing new.)

"All of a sudden the life in Prospect Park seemed to have jumped over several months. A continuous procession of folks afoot came in the main entrance. Seats on the sun benches were at a premium. Troops of children scrambled under the trees regardless of patches of snow still lingering. Younger children, in infant carriages, were being trundled about in bevies, for it was a day pleasant enough to risk the most delicate child out for a long airing.

    It was at the boulevard entrance to the park that you realized the extent of this spring parade. Road house people and tavern keepers early in the day had prepared for a rush. They were not disappointed. Bicycle clubs came out for their first runs. The path teemed with wheelmen, many of whom were out to test their new '99 models. The driveway was almost congested.

    Observation...would have led you to believe that it was a rare day in June instead of the first flush of spring time. All regular summer types were conspicuous--the man with the bicycle face, who guzzled his summer drink and dashed off again down the path at a scorching gait; the lackadaisical summer girl in the transmigratory stage flaunted a gay colored sunshade and displayed her Easter bonnet; sportsmen feeling good over the advent of a season prospectively prosperous sat about and chatted contentedly; a stray member of some riding club bounced by at a trot. Everywhere were people you don't meet until there comes a more salubrious tone to the weather...the horses must have felt the inspiriting touch of spring, too, for they moved at a ready pace."