Ghost town

Remember the very first episode of "The Twilight Zone," where a man finds himself in a town devoid of people and with no memory of who he is?

In Bloomington, where I have my office, an astounding one-third of the city is set aside as park land. Within walking distance of my office are half a dozen parks and playgrounds, many with names that testify to the legacies of Nordic Bloomingtonians of yore (Fenlason Park, Skreibakken Park, Hohag Playlot).

What these spaces testify to mostly, though, is how much summer and childhood have changed since they were built. I sometimes take my lunch to these parks to enjoy some peace and quiet in the middle of the day. And they are peaceful. This entire summer I have not once encountered another soul.

I don't want this to sound like a Horace Bleekman when-I-was-a-boy rant, but where the hell is everybody? I'm not so romantic I expect the parks to be filled with kids playing sandlot baseball. But honestly, where are the children? Day after day after day as I walk and drive around the city I see empty swings, empty slides, empty fields. No bikes, no balls, no kites, no skateboards. Why? I'm not the first person to wonder:

There are many answers, all unsatisfactory. Two income families need to have their kids in day care or summer camps. It's not safe anymore to let kids take their bikes and play out across the neighborhood. Or maybe just blame it on the iPod and the Xbox, and the other indoor trappings of the text message generation.

I was going to take this same series of photos to illustrate this post, but why bother? Hillsborough will do as well as Bloomington.

These days maybe adults are better at playing for play's sake. Let me know if you will or will not be at St. John's tomorrow. We say we tip off at 8:00, but really we just start whenever we have enough guys. We don't keep score, we play as long as we feel like it, and we go home when Mom calls us.