The Story of the Dog Park; Ties that Bind

[manchowder]

bridge.jpg

I'm driving down Highway 61 with a load of stolen wood sticking out the back of my F-150. The sun hangs heavy in the sky, Chevelle rolls over to track one, my speed peaks at 73 mph. Callused from years of construction, my hands do not tremble, my eyes do not shift to the rearview, neither is my conscience nagging; I don't know what the statute of limitations is on hot railroad ties, but these were pilfered long ago on a warm summer night.

Now, ironically, I'm returning them to the citizenry.

#

My 20's were an industrious decade, and toward the end I found myself building a massive addition onto my house. Although we mudded the walls flat, the ceiling I thought to pattern. I didn't have a texturing tool, but knew my dad had access to one. I can't tell you what percentage my motive was parsed into for seldom requesting his help; not wanting to burden him, my quality control and his lack-there-of, sheer independence, or something else. By this juncture in our lives, I'd been making more money than him (probably for some time), and ? right or wrong ? I think there was a part of me that thought, ?I should be helping him?.

He made the trip down without complaint.

Although we had an identical sense of humor, we engaged in the arena of work from different angles. I looked at everything as a challenge to overcome, a project to complete; my dad looked at it as simply a means to an end.

"I'll buy lunch," I mentioned, once we had finished spraying the last of the master bedroom. "What sounds good?"
"Oh, I don't need anything," he said.
"How about Hungry Hobo?" I countered.
"Well, sure," he replied. "Just something simple, and make it a small."

I remember the two of us sitting on the unfinished wooden stairwell, and wondering how such a pittance of food could sustain a man. Since his triple bypass, he'd drastically changed his diet; only seeing him on family get-togethers, I guess it was just easy to forget.

I devoured my sandwich ? finishing first despite inhaling twice the amount. When my dad was done, he crumpled his wrapper into a ball and rose slowly, like a man 10 years his senior. He wore a ratty old cap, and the lines around his eyes sagged like his gray sweatshirt from the weight loss over the years; when it's the last project you ever work on together, I guess the details are just easy to recall.

#

The first bridge was built out of a stairwell riser in my basement the following year.

Purchased from Menards, the risers for the deck ? the grand finale to the addition - weren't so warped when they arrived, but to my great frustration decided to twist and dry after we cut them. They sat in a corner on the freshly bricked patio for some time before an idea struck.

I returned to the store, picked up some decking and screws, laid out the risers on saw-horses and quickly fastened together an 18? span bridge.

At the time, a group of friends and I had started hacking a bike trail in a nearby woodland owned by the city, and although we hadn't been given the official blessing, after numerous calls and messages and no pushback, we moved forward under a naturally deduced ?they clearly don't care? arrangement. The area ? about 15 acres ? was cut in half by a shallow creek with steep, impassible embankments. We had built one trail already, and were chomping at the bit to start second, on the other side.

How does one haul an 18? bridge down the road? Why, you shove it in the back of your pickup and swindle your idiot friends into sitting on the beast to keep it from tipping out.

We pulled into the grassy knoll like a bunch of rednecks rolling up to a backwoods kegger, where now a chain-link fence spans the perimeter of a dog park and a paved sidewalk leads to a bench and drinking fountain. We hopped out and shouldered the behemoth between the seven of us, dragging it through the tall grass and weeds and stopping only once to machete our way through one section like the Donner Party lost along the Oregon Trail. Breathing heavily, we halted at the foot of the creek. After a few minutes rest and contemplation (and Peabody losing a bout with a hive of undocumented mud bees), we planted the bridge into the embankment, pounded in a few stakes and gave it a test.

It held.

#

The parks department tore it down the following spring.

A neighbor had wandered through the trails that we built, beheld the mountain bike features, the logs and dirt, the makeshift bridge. She contacted the local news with a falsely assumed narrative; that a bunch of teenagers were out destroying the woods.

In retrospect, what other choice did the city have?

I remember standing over the wreckage; splintered wood, orange cones and caution tape where our bridge once spanned, like the sad hangover on Bourbon Street the day after Mardi Gras. There's a line in The Lord of the Rings, when King Theoden is holed up inside Helm's Deep, and as the forces of darkness are pounding on the gates, threatening to break in and destroy all, he asks in bitter defeat, ?What can men do against such reckless hate??

I don't recall thinking about my dad, my son, or anyone else whose names have been etched into stone; not my employees or my customers or any other weight of business hanging around my neck like a noose; not my wife or my daughters or the things in life that really matter; only that something lay before me ? a project to complete, a challenge to overcome.

I decided to rebuild.

In retrospect, what other choice did I have?

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