Barsotti Park

My family moved to Aloha in 1978, when I was six years old. Concerns about urban sprawl aside, I loved the suburban mix. We were close to theaters and stores, but there were trees and animals everywhere. On Farmington there was a flock of sheep, and across 160th there were horses, and right next to my cul de sac there were cows.

Most of that is apartments now. It's not horrible. There are still a lot of trees, and there are green spaces and some trails set aside. The inevitable changes and development could have been handled much worse, and I appreciate that. I am most grateful for what happened with the cow pasture, which is now a park.

I never really knew the Barsotti family. Every now and then I would see Mr. Barsotti and we'd exchange greetings, and I did run into one of the daughters while picking blackberries. That spot has always been important to me though. I loved having the cows there, and once they were gone I kind of missed them. Later on, I loved having that spot for picking blackberries. I guess it's not exactly nature, because these are things that we domesticate, but still, there was life and greenery and a feeling of connection.

Hearing that the family had decided to donate the land for a park was always something that I had thought was great, and seeing the plans that went out was something that looked good, but I had not anticipated how good it would be.

I walk by the park every day, so I was watching the construction's progress, but I was not the only one. The moment the fencing came down from around the play area, it was full of children. It was so popular, so fast.

I hadn't understood the need. When I was a kid, everyone had yards, which is no longer the case. Even so, we had yards we could play in, but we would often go to the play structure that the nearby school had, because sometimes you need to swing and slide and climb.

It is not just for kids. When my mother's knees got bad, her doctor recommended not walking the dogs anymore, because the road shoulders were so uneven. Now there is a walking path that she can do. When we explored it for the first time we found small children from our block, and older kids from our church, and a former coworker who is excited because she has a nearby park where she can bring her grandchildren.

It's not even completely done. The tennis nets are not up yet, and they were doing something with the picnic tables yesterday. It is still already filling a huge need, and I am probably not the only one who had not realized how much the need was there.

It appears that my role in this may be applying for one of the community garden plots, and seeing how that goes. Mainly, I'm just glad it's there. I'm grateful for the family's generosity. I'm glad that this field I was so fond of did not become another plot of apartments or tract housing. I'm glad that the children in all of the other apartments and tract housing have a nice place to play.

It's a beautiful thing.