Sunday Evening in the Park

The weather is good, and the gym is closed for the weekend. So, this evening at 6:45 I headed to Willow Springs Park for an hour of walking. As I walked my usual laps I looked at all the people around the park and was amazed at this glimpse of east Tennessee in 2008.

I saw

• a young man with a Great Dane
• two long-haired young guys on skateboards
• a white family on creaky, squeaky bicycles
• two older women walking together and smiling at the people they meet on the path
• two older men walking and nodding at the people they meet on the path
• young lovers sitting on one of the benches, their back to the sun
• two older lovers sitting on one of the benches down by the pond
• two young families descended from a country in the Middle East playing volleyball
• five young men on the basketball court, two black, three white
• an older white man walking alone
• a younger black woman walking alone
• three ETSU professors (one retired), including me
• young father (white) with a pacifier in his mouth, young mother (black) with braided hair, little boy
• lots of children of different ethnicity playing on the playground

The last two songs I heard on my mp3 player were U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and Steve Winwood's "Higher Love."

The sun fell lower and lower in the western sky, and my shadow grew longer and longer, stretching across the grass and now and then crossing the long shadows of strangers.