HYDE PARK WHERE LIVIN' IS EASY

RPA
2 hours ago
3 min read

For Eva

Dodging the sun and oven-blasts of air, I implored my family, once the sun had set, to let me out. So we all hopped into our little compact car to see a place called “Sparky Park,” lol. No, it’s not a playground sponsored by ERCOT to encourage us to set our thermostats high to make sure the grid holds, no. My wife saw it on Atlas Obscura and it looked wacky enough for a closer look.

I surprised Vanessa with the tunes: Sublime, “Doin’ Time.” Instant mood-change. She wanted “Scarlet Begonias” cued up next. So we hit MoPac, cracked the window, and watched a gold-coin-sun burn out like a glowing coal.

Speeding down Loop 1, we exited onto 38th. Turned into Grooms St., apparently a Hyde Park neighborhood. We walked toward the grounds of the park, and that’s when I saw the karst arches. Behind me, like a flushed cheek, the sky broke out in purples & pinks. The colors bled above the telephone poles—and the city’s violet crown wasn’t far behind.

We walked around the small park, formerly an electrical substation 90 years ago. I admired the disc insulators that looked like something off of 60s-era robots. We walked to the wall and inspected the seashell art, mirror balls, and arches. Vanessa looked at herself with her camera like Missy Elliot in a music video, stretching her face in the reflections.

We walked to the grove. The mourning doves cooed but flapped in a panic on telephone wires as we approached. Crepe myrtles coiled in twisted branches were lightly peeling their bark. There is a trellis tunnel with red Trumpet Vine flowers blowing out like kazoos. But the mosquitoes could sense our pumping blood, so they dropped right down on our arms and legs to suck as much as they could out. We all got bit. I counted six throbbing red bumps on my skin.

We made a loop around the neighborhood and waved at the residents of one of Austin’s truest neighborhoods. I wish I could live here. But I say that about every nice place I go. Ha.

We drove on 38th, heading home. I spotted the poetry plaque.

“Wanna stop by?” Vanessa asked.

“Ummm. Yeah. Park. I want him to read the poem.”

“Ok.”

We parked by the most open, spacious green lawn. Wide open space that turned out to be Hancock Golf Course. Right by 38½ and Peck. My son spotted a steep hill around the track. “Let’s go find it,” I said, “and you can run up that thing. Conquer it.”

We walked over the Waller Creek Bridge, found a staircase by the lawn and turned around to see the last dying glow of the day. My grandmother called me back and we all laughed as we wished her a happy birthday. My son sprinted up the hill with great resolve, with all the combustion of his youth. I smiled.

We walked to Huffstickler Green, a small tract on 38th and Duval, and stopped at the memorial for the poet laureate of Hyde Park, Albert Huffstickler. We all read the poem. When I got to the line where I knew the poem was taking off, transitioning to exultation, I recited it aloud:

“And in the night, these faces glow

with a gentle light

and they're like the faces of angels

descended from some high place

to tell us it's all right,

that the loneliness will end,

that somewhere in a place not known to us yet,

we're together and always have been.”