When I was growing up, it was a very big deal to get to go to the City Park in my home town. It boasted the “World’s Largest Lily Pond”. I don’t know whether that is true or not, but it did have a massive lily pond that was so gorgeous when the lilies were in bloom. There was a large fountain out in the center of the pond and white swans swimming around. The trees were plentiful and massive…well, they were to a little girl. There were baseball games with lights on the field. There was a small zoo and a museum. There were monuments and cannons and steam machinery. Tennis courts, basketball courts, a covered shuffleboard area. And a swimming pool. There were several covered picnic pavilions and a large activity center called “The Pavilion” where dances were periodically held. At the entryway, there was a large three tiered fountain with a statue of a woman on the top. The water cascaded down and if we were very good, we got to throw a penny in the fountain. We used to go to City Park every year for the Fourth of July Fireworks and Carnival. We had countless picnics there.

Over the years, the park fell into disarray. The beautifully manicured lawns and landscaped flowerbeds were often overgrown. As with many inner city parks, vagrants could often be found sleeping in the band shelter or on one of the picnic tables. Graffiti covered the walls of the bathrooms and you took your life in your own hands going into one. There were multiple overdoses and occasional deaths in the park. 

Still, memories are hard to drive out and I kept going back. Over the last several years, little by little, life has been coming back to the park. They built a splash pad for the kids. A couple of the old basketball courts were removed to make way for Pickleball. The zoo was long since removed. The pond lost its lilies in favor of a cleaner, more sanitary fishing area. The Pavilion houses an indoor ice skating rink, albeit on an artificial “ice”. 

A few years ago, the Friends of the Park asked for volunteers to adopt a flower bed and several of my high school classmates have been doing a beautiful job. They are keeping the flowers in our bed looking like something out of a magazine. They should be very proud. Our flower bed is one of the first that you see upon entering the park.

The fountain at the entrance was built in the early 1900’s and became a well known landmark in Parkersburg. Somewhere along the line, the fountain was damaged by a lightning strike, I believe. It was repaired with fiberglass, then a few years ago a tree came down in a storm and the fountain was blown over and destroyed. It stood with just its broken bottom level for a couple of years. Then, this spring, work began to restore the fountain to it’s original beauty.

This weekend it was unveiled and is a near perfect replica of the original fountain. The water has been turned on…something we haven’t seen in decades. In times when there is so much uncertainty, so much bitterness and anger and division…we saw a little window to the past open this week in our little corner of the world. I can’t answer for anyone else…but I felt a little tiny bit of the weight of the last few months lift off my shoulders when we took a drive out to the park to see this proud beauty back in action.

It did my heart good. It’s the little things now.

❤️

“Have faith in me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you, just as the Scriptures say.””

John 7:38 CEV

Photo Credit: Dan Kemper