By Pamma FitzGerald
An elderly woman stood immobile in Riley Park. She was wearing sturdy walking shoes and despite the summer heat, a warm woolly cardigan. She was leaning on her cane looking up and down the newly installed walking path. At first I thought she was a bit disoriented but as I walked closer she turned to me and boomed “Build it and they will come’”.
She was using a quote from WP Kinsella’s book Shoeless Joe that was the basis for the Field of Dreams movie starring Kevin Costner. The quote has come to mean ‘if you believe in something then follow your instincts and don’t be held back’.
I know all this useless trivia because not only did I have a crush on Kevin Costner in the 80s (before he left his wife and kids for another woman and therefore turned me right off) but because I had taken my first university English course with Kinsella at the good old U of C. But I digress.
So there we were, two strangers standing on the new path but I had more of an interest in her opinion of the new path than she knew. You see it was my idea. Kinda.
It was the year before as I was jogging around the perimeter of the park and just after I passed a father and his young daughter (who loudly asked “Daddy why is that lady running so slowly?”) that I found myself side-stepping mud. I realized the existing patchy path only covered three quarters of the perimeter and the remaining quarter was just mud. And remember, it was spring so it was real muddy mud.
On the next few runs I noticed more and more how the disintegrated path hindered mobility for parents with strollers, people on crutches, toddlers on tricycles and Usain Bolt-like runners like myself. When I saw a man in a wheelchair have to turn around because of the path ending, I thought someone should try and fix this. And then I thought could that be me? I’m not exactly that kind of person, am I?
But feeling strongly about the lack of accessibility, I took the idea to the HSCA planning committee for their approval and then moved on to ‘The City’. It’s an onerous title isn’t it? I thought of ’The City’ as a big all-encompassing moniker that conveys a maze of impersonal dead-ends. And I definitely did encounter a couple of dead-ends, but then, by magic or good fortune or Roger Bannister guiding my way - (that’s for the runners reading this) I got hold of real people who listened and cared.
Ron Buchan (Parks Community Strategist) and Michele Reid (lCultural Landscape Lead) are people that care, and they were both instrumental in getting this project going. Michelle pointed out that the original park included a path around the perimeter. Yea! It’s back to how it was! Hardly anything else in the park has changed in 100 years, although I’d like to point out that the ‘Comfort Stations’ are now called ‘Washrooms’.
Pamma FitzGerald is a mixed media artist who has lived in Hillhurst for 40 years. Recently her Riley Park postcard was chosen by Loft112 to represent the Hillhurst Community in the 'Cards for Community' project. You can pick one up for FREE from Pages Bookstore from the end of March. Follow her on Instagram @pammafitzgerald or www.pammafitzgerald.wordpress.com
