Tag Archives: park

Water in Waxahachie

Posted on by Bill Chance

Fountain in Waxahachie

Photo taken on a Photowalk. At a child’s waterpark, a new splash pad, near downtown Waxahachie, Texas… you push a button and the various water things come to life, designed to sprinkle youngsters on hot Texas summer days. Here, two streams cunningly combine to form a disk of water, suspended in air, ephemeral as water can be.

Everything on the earth bristled, the bramble
pricked and the green thread
nibbled away, the petal fell, falling
until the only flower was the falling itself.
Water is another matter,
has no direction but its own bright grace,
runs through all imaginable colors,
takes limpid lessons
from stone,
and in those functionings plays out
the unrealized ambitions of the foam.
—-Water, by Pablo Neruda

Crescent Park

Posted on by Bill Chance

There is nothing more boring than riding an exercise bike. In order to try and get my bad-weather (ie over 100 degrees) exercise going, one thing I like to do is watch POV YouTube videos of other people riding their bikes in more interesting places than my spare room. I know that’s pretty bad – but you have to do what you have to do.

I mounted a monitor and speakers to my bike, and watch videos while I ride. One of the ones I like to ride to is this hour-long ride around New Orleans.

At the nine-minute fifty-second mark in the video, the riders climb over some crazy rusted-steel arch-shaped bridge. I’ve wondered what that thing is… it looks like it’s in the Bywater area, but I can’t be sure.

The other day, on my last day in New Orleans for the writing marathon, my son Lee and I drove down to the quarter for lunch and I mentioned the strange bridge. He knew exactly what I was talking about and we hopped in his car and drove there.

Crescent Park Bridge, New Orleans

It’s a really cool park, Crescent Park, built along the Mississippi from the French Market area down to the Bywater neighborhood.

The bridge takes pedestrians (and cyclists, if they carry their bikes) over the levee and the railroad tracks into the park. It’s a beautiful spot – a new favorite in the Big Easy. I have to visit it with my bike next time.

My son, Lee, on the Crescent Park bridge.

The river and the Hwy 90 double bridge from the Crescent Park Bridge, New Orleans

Turning around, looking back the other way from the Crescent Park Bridge, Bywater Neighborhood, New Orleans

Bywater, from the Crescent Park Bridge, New Orleans

The river and downtown, from the Crescent Park Bridge, New Orleans

What’s For Lunch

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.”
― Orson Welles

Main Street Garden Park Dallas, Texas

Main Street Garden Park
Dallas, Texas

Someday We’ll Evaporate Together

Posted on by Bill Chance

“You are water
I’m water
we’re all water in different containers
that’s why it’s so easy to meet
someday we’ll evaporate together.”
― Yoko Ono

Thanksgiving Square Dallas, Texas

Thanksgiving Square
Dallas, Texas

Yet Where, And To What Purpose?

Posted on by Bill Chance

“…as the slow sea sucked at the shore and then withdrew, leaving the strip of seaweed bare and the shingle churned, the sea birds raced and ran upon the beaches. Then that same impulse to flight seized upon them too. Crying, whistling, calling, they skimmed the placid sea and left the shore. Make haste, make speed, hurry and begone; yet where, and to what purpose? The restless urge of autumn, unsatisfying, sad, had put a spell upon them and they must flock, and wheel, and cry; they must spill themselves of motion before winter came.”
― Daphne du Maurier, The Birds and Other Stories

Pegasus Plaza Dallas, Texas

Pegasus Plaza
Dallas, Texas

Enjoy the Ride

Posted on by Bill Chance

“your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Klyde Warren Park Dallas, Texas

Klyde Warren Park
Dallas, Texas

Listen to the Silence Inside the Illusion of the World

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Portable Jack Kerouac

Klyde Warren Park Dallas, Texas

Klyde Warren Park
Dallas, Texas

Tongue-Tied and Twisted

Posted on by Bill Chance

Into the distance, a ribbon of black
Stretched to the point of no turning back
A flight of fancy on a windswept field
Standing alone my senses reeled
A fatal attraction is holding me fast,
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
—-Learning to Fly, Pink Floyd

Pocket Park Downtown Dallas, Texas

Pocket Park
Downtown
Dallas, Texas

The Delicate Toil Of the Needle

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Working on freeform embroidery, Klyde Warren Park Dallas, Texas

Working on freeform embroidery,
Klyde Warren Park
Dallas, Texas

M41 Walker Bulldog

Posted on by Bill Chance

“A man must know his destiny… if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder… if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it.”
― George S. Patton Jr.

M41 Walker Bulldog Liberty Park Plano, Texas

M41 Walker Bulldog
Liberty Park
Plano, Texas

I think every park should have a tank, don’t you?

I mean, kids play in parks – and wouldn’t any kid rather play on a tank, on a real tank, a huge hunk of steel, than crawl around on engineered plastic safety guaranteed soft padded equipment set in deep beds of pine mulch or recycled rubber.

Back in the day there were steel monkey bars. The kids would line the sides and wail away – hit and kick – each in his turn as they tried to work hand over hand down the line. Anybody that made it to the end without falling would “win.” It didn’t happen often. This was awful, vicious, and violent. Nobody would act that way if they had a tank to play on.

This is an M41 Walker Bulldog in Liberty Park, in Plano, Texas… by the way.

The only disappointment is that the thing is welded shut. Wouldn’t it be cool if the kids could crawl in through an open hatch – look around inside – maybe a working periscope from the driver’s seat. Of course, I know that’s impossible – way too dangerous… not to mention what critters might move into a space like that. The maintenance costs would be astronomical.

But still… it would be so cool.

Their little imaginations would be so stimulated – their minds run free. I think there has to be a bit of danger involved – a forbidden element – for the flights of fancy to really go to town. Imagine if you grew up near a park that had a tank – a tank you could get inside of – one you could look out from. Imagine. You would talk about it your whole life.

But then everyone would say, “Yeah, we had one too – every park has a tank.”

M41 Walker Bulldog Liberty Park Plano, Texas

M41 Walker Bulldog
Liberty Park
Plano, Texas

M41 Walker Bulldog Liberty Park Plano, Texas

M41 Walker Bulldog
Liberty Park
Plano, Texas