A Better Life

Last weekend I went to Cole Park. Cole Park is a park on the bay front of Corpus Christi. I’ve been there many times usually to watch a movie. They have an amphitheater there that sometimes they show movies on the wall in the summer. I’d never been and just enjoyed the park. It boasts a playground, skate park, a garden (I never actually found the garden) and a walking path along the bay. Part of the water area is lined with sand, but most of it is lined with rocks.

The park is mostly a large grassy area with a few palm trees, otherwise not much shade. So I walked down the path by the water, I thought this was the best way to see the whole park and get a breeze. They were setting up for some event when I got there, not sure what the event was but there were tents and food vendors arriving. I’m not sure how wise it was set up the event this early on a Saturday, because they kept driving on the walking path without much regard to others.

There was a nice breeze by the water so I thought I would have a seat on the rocks and just watch the water. There were a couple of families playing on the beach and in the water, I saw birds flying over the bay and even a two small sea turtles coming up for air. It was very hot but otherwise a very nice day. My plan was to find a nice place and just sit and kind of zen out, do some thinking. Unfortunately I got distracted and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

When I walked down to the beach, I thought I might walk down the water front along the rocks. Then I remembered my balance is no where good enough to do this so I climbed back down. What I saw on the beach was disgusting though. There was trash everywhere; straws, Whataburger cups, half of plates and so much small random plastic that there was no telling what it used to be. And those families were playing in it, the animals were living in it and feeding in it. But the people didn’t seem to care, they were letting there children play in it and were splashing around in it themselves. Its like they were desensitized to the trash like it was supposed to be there. I guess in a way it is, most of us have spent most of our lives going to the beach, to the park, walking down our street and seeing bits of trash in the sand, the water or grass.

The only places I really saw garbage cans was near the areas where the most people would gather: near the picnic areas, the playground and skate park; but only one near the water front and no recycling. People only do what is convenient and going a few extra steps or even holding on to trash is inconvenient so what do we do? We drop it where ever we happen to be. The way I see it we have two solutions for the future, let the Earth become a landfill (that we have to live in, because there isn’t any place to move to and start all over) or do what we can to keep our planet livable. I choose do try to do my part to help with the second option, but why doesn’t anyone else?

If any of our leaders cared more, and I don’t really mean politicians because they are and they aren’t part of our daily lives. I mean the city leaders, the CEOs, our parents and elders should take more responsibility. That also means each of us who can think for ourselves. We need to make clean up and taking care of the Earth easier, add more garbage and recycling bins and take the extra steps, the simple steps to do better. Disney has it right a trash can about every ten to fifteen feet. Come up with more reusable products and make them affordable to the average person. The average consumer is not going to buy a $40 water bottle. We aren’t the only animals, beings or lives on this planet, but we are the only ones that can help (I’m pretty sure of that, I think).

A New Perspective

Lately our weather has been very hit and miss, gray and ugly one day, clear and pleasant the next. This past Saturday was one of those clear and pleasant days. The temperature was right with just the lightest breeze and a clear sunny sky. I decided to visit Artesian Park in downtown Corpus Christi. I’d driven by this park many times and always wanted to stop, but never took the chance.

I drove downtown and since it was such it was such a nice day, I parked several blocks away from the park. I thought I would have a nice walk too. I parked across the street from the Executive Surf Club, a restaurant and bar sometimes with a live band playing in the courtyard, and started walking down the street. There weren’t a lot of shops open, but still had a few people out. I realized that I didn’t think I had been out and about downtown during the day much or at all. I had gone out downtown to meet friends at restaurants, bars or clubs, but otherwise I’d never spent much time there. To me downtown was always just a run down, shuttered place with nothing to offer, just bars, restaurants and a tattoo shop. While this is mostly true, there is an obvious attempt to change that. And when I took the time to look around, there was a beauty there too.

On the way to Artesian Park, I passed alley ways and storefronts (mostly closed on the weekend) and cross streets. Yes, I did have a destination but I also didn’t want to be so concerned with seeing everything or getting where I was going that I saw or experienced nothing. I had the time so I didn’t limit my trek so while I did continue on to the park but I stopped and checked out what I could along the way.

I finally made it to Artesian Park. Its supposed to be the first park in Corpus Christi created when Corpus Christi’s founder, Henry Kinney, donated the land to the city as a park in 1854. The first thing I did when I got there was to check out the commemorative stone to General Zachary Taylor’s army, they camped here from 1845 to 1846. Then I walked into the rest of the park. It was a nice green space within the concrete, brick and glass of downtown. I sat down on a bench and listened to the birds twitter and watched the squirrels run. The tree tops were home to a handful of grackle nests. One even ran off a mocking bird.

Next to the park was a boutique. In the past, I had always thought the building was a children’s home. I was half right as it was a house, but it contained a clothing boutique. They were having a pop up fair, there were vendors on the front lawn and porch. I walked around all the vendors and wandered around inside for a while before buying some jewelry. I probably shouldn’t have bought anything, but I could afford it and I really liked the pieces.

I took a different route back to my car. There are some really cute views of downtown, who would’ve thought. I found more street art than I thought there would be. And as I was walking, almost everyone I passed was staring at their phones. I was so curious, I peeked at someone’s phone as they passed me. They were playing Pokemon Go. I thought people had stopped playing that game a year ago. Shows me. I don’t know that everyone staring at their phones was playing Pokemon, but at least a few were.

The last place I stumbled across was the World War I memorial. I guess you could say I knew it was there, I’d driven by it before, but I don’t think I would have remembered it was there. It was just a large open green space on the hill leading from downtown to uptown. In Spohn Park, a wide open space before heading back to the car.

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A Neighborhood Visit

I don’t have the time or money to travel as much as I would like, so I try to be a traveler in my town and areas near by. I’m planning a weekend trip to San Antonio next month, there are some trails I want to watch and I would like to see the new exhibit at the zoo, but when I can’t really go anywhere, I’m trying to see areas around my home. My goal is to explore all the parks here in Corpus Christi.

I started by downloading a list of the parks here in town. I don’t have a very organized way of choosing the parks. Basically, I pick ones I’ve never been to or look interesting on Google Maps or their reviews. Its almost like throwing darts at a very specific dart board. I’ve visited about half a dozen parks since I started, some I wasn’t impressed with, they were just parks with a walking track and playground. Not that that’s a bad park, it meets the needs of the people and families that live in the neighborhood, just not what I was looking for. My favorite were the parks with something to actually explore. Lakeview Park and West Guth Park were my favorites.

Lakeview Park had a lot of trees surrounding a lake or a very large duck pond, because there were a lot of ducks. It took me about an hour to walk all the way around the lake. Probably less, I did stop a few times and venture a little closer. There were lots of birds nesting around the lake, mostly ducks and geese, but there were some ibis, cormorants, turtles and even a few chickens that had made a pit stop there. At least I think the chickens had just stopped there, I never imagined chickens living there, but now that I think about it the neighborhood surrounding the lake didn’t really look like a place you would raise chickens. I had a grand ole time that afternoon, and isn’t that what everything is about.

While I like Lakeview because of the nature, I enjoyed West Guth Park because one spot in particular gave me the greatest sense of nostalgia. There was this old, stone foundation (I don’t know what was there) among a copse of trees. I could imagine me and my friends playing there when we were kids. We always played on the edge of the woods (we weren’t allowed to go in). We used the dirt and threes and roots to create backdrops of all our games. West Guth also had a small duck pond surrounded by trees with exposed roots. The roots made the perfect little seat.

Last weekend, my sister and I went to Blucher Park. I normally visited the parks on my own, but I took my sister with me because as much as I wanted to visit this park I was a little hesitant. I had read a lot of reviews describing a homeless population living in and around the park and a shelter on one side. I’m not saying that homeless people are dangerous, but since college I have a hesitation on being alone in an area where there was anyone who I thought might be homeless. Most homeless people I have met have been perfectly wonderful people who are just down on their luck, but I had a scary experience the summer between my junior and senior year of college.

That summer my car broke down and I had to walk from my apartment to work for about a month. I would usually walk or ride my bike, sometimes my friends or roommate would give me a ride. One afternoon when I was walking, just after I crossed the street from my neighborhood to the next a homeless man approached me from behind on the sidewalk. He told me that I was coming with him. I’m not really a screamer, usually my brain goes to how I can get out of the situation so I didn’t move and didn’t say anything. He repeated that I was coming with him. I looked around helpless. A man driving down the road stopped and asked what was going on. The man walked away in the opposite direction and I continued on to work. I never told my family about this, but I did tell me friends and roommate. They didn’t let me walk to work too my after that and my car was fixed soon.

I don’t like to let things like that stop me from living my life, especially since nothing happened to me. But it still makes me nervous. Blucher Park was beautiful and I think I would have enjoyed it more if 80% of the people I saw didn’t make me nervous. The park had beautiful groves of trees, where it looked like I could curl up and read a book and spend a wonderful afternoon. The weather was beautiful (which lately the South Texas weather has been cold and wet) and the bugs weren’t biting, it was a great day to be outside in nature.

I was a bit disappointed though. They had a map of the park before you went in, but no way finding signs within the park which made things a little confusing once inside. I can see both sides, you don’t want to ruin nature with a sign, but it makes it less visitor friendly if your lost. The map showed a little bluff, I was in disbelief. I thought a bluff, really, but it was there and big enough that I wouldn’t have wanted to fall in. It lead down to a little creek. The park was smaller than I thought it would be. Overall, I was disappointed, I don’t know if its because I had hyped up this park or because I didn’t really allowed myself to enjoy the park.