To maintain a park | Calgary Herald

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There’s an outdated saying that if one thing isn’t damaged, don’t repair it. Drained as it could be, well-used and well-loved, the tiny playground on Bowness Street ought to certainly be saved.

My late husband, Dale, and I had the privilege of dwelling in Bowness for greater than 40 years. Dale had the honour of dwelling and serving the neighborhood as an alderman for 10 consecutive phrases, holding the excellence of longest serving alderman in Calgary’s historical past.

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He achieved this feat by listening to our neighbours and his constituents, and a deep mutual respect and belief ensued.

Dale liked parks, virtually as a lot as he liked books. The truth is, the best honour of his life was when the town selected to call a park after him. That park exists as a result of Dale stood up for the neighborhood with ardour and dedication, steadfastly refusing to permit it to be developed.

Parks and playgrounds function neighborhood gathering locations for households younger and outdated. They’re intergenerational, and supply alternatives for younger youngsters to have interaction in important bodily exercise, and supply a catalyst to the event of essential social expertise by way of their interplay with others with out monetary price or burden of transportation, an vital consideration particularly to low revenue neighborhood members.

Psychological well being is measurably improved by elevated interplay with each nature and neighborhood — a double win when together.

Dale understood that.

A caring neighborhood gives alternatives for all of its members. Cultivating a wholesome society requires infrastructure that permits all members to thrive. If you take away — even quickly — neighborhood property reminiscent of parks and playgrounds, you impoverish the neighborhood not solely by way of a bodily deprivation, however from a well being and wellness standpoint as effectively.

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This current park is an funding in neighborhood. Whereas I’m knowledgeable that the developer has encouraging plans to develop extra reasonably priced housing — a laudable purpose — and plans to reintroduce a brand new park, one wonders if it will likely be considered in the identical method by the neighborhood as a complete. A park or playground that’s inexorably linked to the housing challenge tends to be seen as non-public, no matter how welcoming it’s meant.

I might be remiss if I failed to acknowledge that even the most effective laid plans could be torn asunder. One doesn’t must look very far to search out examples of initiatives that have been “deliberate,” however have been modified or cancelled altogether. Even the as soon as vaunted Inexperienced Line LRT challenge, considered “too massive to fail,” has succumbed. Generally, a hen in hand is best than two within the bush.

Dale understood that, too.

Because the world turns more and more quicker, it’s the small issues we should look to. The enjoyment of discovering a quiet place to be with our ideas, to see youngsters enjoying, meet with neighbours and have a real human connection reasonably than a “digital” one.

These are the moments that really matter. I perceive that, Dale understood that and the neighborhood understands that.

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If we lose one other park, one other playground, even for a trigger so worthy because the one being contemplated, it’s misplaced eternally.

Because of Dale and an initiative he helped put forth whereas on council, we now have a whole stock of websites and lands owned by the town; we now know that the town has many, many different websites obtainable.

Absolutely, with all that Bowness has endured — together with flood restoration, the unimaginable challenges it faces with the water line, boil-water advisory and higher stress that elevated density has introduced and can proceed to carry — maybe this one tiny sliver of neighborhood can stay.

Yvonne Hodges is a longtime resident of Bowness whose late husband, Dale, was Calgary’s longest serving alderman.

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