What if you decided to patronize the local neighborhood park and discovered that baseball, football, softball, wiffle ball, volleyball, basketball, soccer, kickball, handball, tennis, frisbee, kite flying, model airplane flying and ping pong were all banned there? Sounds like fun, no? (I’m not sure about go-fish or European-style tiddly-winks).
And what if I also told you that if you were contemplating a nice bike ride through the park, you could just forget it? Bicycles, skateboards, roller skates, roller blades, shopping carts, golf carts or any other motorized-wheeled modes of transportation are also banned – although, to be fair, baby carriages, wheelchairs, standard two-legged walking, and the free intake of the oxygen-nitrogen compound that comprise the air we breathe, as of this writing, are permitted.
Welcome to Lyndhurst, New Jersey and Town Hall Park.
Michael Lamendola of the South Bergenite writes:
Last week, the board of commissioners tabled a lengthy ordinance regulating everything from mobility use in the park to using the new facilities within it. The regulations run the gamut of officially banning certain sports in the park to prohibiting the use of the new amphitheater without a permit. Although lengthy and precise in its ability to allow police to govern and enforce violations in the park, officials said the ordinance needs to go back to the drawing board for add-ons.
Add-ons?
Back to the drawing board?
What did they forget? The anti-flatulence and public belching provision? The no-perspiration addendum?
Mayor Richard DiLascio, a former Republican who recently converted to Democrat, said:
"People think of some strange things to do, I can picture someone climbing up on stuff, on the band shell and everything else. What we didn’t put in here [the ordinance] is something we talked about and I don’t like to call it ‘catch all’ because that’s not legal, but we need something a little broader in scope in terms of general behavior that might be considered dangerous to either self, others or property."
This is one of those instances where I concede that I must be missing something. I acknowledge that my mind and I are sometimes not on a first-name basis, and the light bulb is often in need of a new filament (I have yet to switch to one of these new environmentally sound, ridiculous looking squiggly light bulbs), but I am positively befuddled here. I am, therefore, affording myself the opportunity to be informed by those far less ignorant than me. Clarity is a tasty morsel, indeed.
Someone please explain to me the rationale of having a park – inclusive of trees, fields, paths and all the archetypal “park” amenities – if almost all recreational activities normally associated with a day at the park are forbidden?
Why date a supermodel if you can’t talk to, touch, be seen with, be near or tell anyone about it?
This is reminiscent of the all-too-commonplace stories of elementary schools banning certain activities at recess – tag, dodge ball, whatever – as a means of “protecting the children” and sparing them the various stigmatizing eventualities that could potentially scar them for the rest of their natural lives. One must believe that during recess periods, kids are let out into unsupervised jungles of lawlessness and dog-eat-dog rules without any adult supervision whatsoever. What exactly happens during recess these days? Do teachers unlock the gates and jump out of the way into closets and cigarette-smoke filled lounges while the untamed beasts explode onto the playgrounds to engage in free-frolicking incivility and depraved violence? When I was a boy, there were teachers everywhere during recess periods. When exactly did that change?
Are we then to believe that it is better for children to have certain activities completely banned rather than actually teaching them the proper way to behave within those activities?
I suppose Town Hall Park in Lyndhurst, New Jersey is just the latest schoolyard in a society so quick to ban rather than enforce – and the citizens of Lyndhurst are the children at recess.
Andrew Roman, Brooklyn, NY