Listening to the call of summer, whispering a cautionary tale for Woods Park

By Mary Kay Roth

Perched on a picnic table at Woods Park on this sultry Saturday evening, I take some time to watch summer pass by. 

Squirrels scramble everywhere around me, scurrying over the freshly cut carpet of grass, acres of open space speckled with smatterings of yellow and white wildflowers. Boughs of scotch pine hang low and rustle in the breeze, the backdrop for elegant stands of sycamore, locust, elm trees. The song of a cardinal mingles with the roar of cars jetting along O street – the click-clack of a skateboarder and the jabber of children on the park's playground – the blare of loudspeakers from the nearby swimming pool and the clamor of pick-up frisbee. 

A few fireflies tease with their tiny lanterns, as the blush of twilight begins to glow over this urban park – a glorious wide-open expanse of green serving as a crossroads betwixt city and Mother Nature, an enchanting swath of wildlife at the heart of our town.

Recently, the Friends of Woods Tennis Center submitted their request to Lincoln Parks and Recreation to amend the master plan for Woods Park, proposing to add six more tennis courts, another tennis building and a significantly extended parking lot.  Of course, the request comes with the obligatory step of stripping away precious green space and chopping down significant numbers of cherished trees.  

Our neighborhood – and growing numbers of citizen advocates – believe this is a turning point, a time we pause to consider the future of these treasured 47 acres of open space … a milestone moment to decide whether we savor this park, or continue to nibble it away, piece by piece, tree by tree. 

On this particular July evening, I lie back and feel the tickle of grass underneath bare feet while, overhead, blankets of clouds drift over a pale blue sky now gilded by the setting sun. 

This year I’m savoring summer, warm months that hold the unique capacity to soothe soul and senses – a season I rush through, way too often.  I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but its memories hit me harder than any other season. 

Yes, Woods is our community’s park, but it is also my neighborhood park. 

My children grew up here.  They soared with abandon from the playground swings, double dog dared one another to leap off towers at Woods pool.  We flew kites and dined on PBJ picnics in the spring, held sweaty softball and baseball practices in the summer, celebrated golden maples in the fall, tromped through the park’s sweeping, wind-blown snowdrifts in the winter.  

In fact, families from across Lincoln have played in this oasis, a park planted and nurtured smack dab in the middle of our city.

Joni Mitchell wrote the familiar cautionary lyrics, “Pave paradise, put up a parking lot,” more than half a century ago.  She was visiting Hawaii for the very first time, threw open her hotel room curtains and gazed at the paradise of beautiful green mountains in the distance while, below, contemplated a yawning, ugly parking lot stretched as far as the eye could see.

As the same old struggles circle round, I’m wondering if I’m not alone in feeling frustrated lately, facing down global problems without any sense of meaningful tactics to fight back.  I can recycle soda cans and use sustainable grocery bags, but I’m still not solving climate change.

I can, however, work to try and protect Woods Park. 

A tree’s service to this planet ranges from carbon storage and soil conservation to water cycle regulation, according to a study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Trees support natural and human food systems and provide homes for countless species. Yet we often treat them as disposable, an inconvenience in the way of human development.

“Even if we could live in a world without trees, who would want to?” said Thomas Crowther, a global systems ecologist and lead author of the study. “This planet is unique from everything else we currently know in the universe because of this unexplainable thing called life, and without trees, almost all of it would just be screwed.”  

True confessions, I am part of a grassroots advocacy effort – called Woods Park: Keep It Green – focused on saving the existing green spaces here. Through wise leadership, we recently helped identify Woods Park as one of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum’s affiliated Landscape Steward Sites, honoring the park’s 750-plus trees – and reimagining a vision for Woods with community gardens, prairie plantings, rain gardens, walking paths and additional trees.

But please let us be clear. We have no problem with tennis.  We simply believe you can move, create, build tennis courts anywhere across the city of Lincoln.  You cannot re-create or move a park.  This would be the third expansion of the tennis complex footprint since 2013, with the justification, once again: “We’re only talking about a few trees.”

And then of course a few more, and a few more.

Tonight, as deep dusk starts to settle over Woods Park, I realize July is fast fading into August and the inevitable turn of the calendar brings a sense of impending urgency. 

There’s a magic to urban parks, if we would only listen to their whispered prayer … to the cry of the cicadas, to the coo of the mourning doves, to the call of the trees … warning us about the sacredness of this precious earth.

When the green is gone, it is gone forever.  

****Please support Woods Park and Keep it Green: 

• Talk to your friends about this issue.
• Post messages on your social media channels.
• Follow us on Facebook, Woods Park: Keep It Green.
• Contact/call/email members of the Lincoln City Council: https://www.lincoln.ne.gov/City/City-Council/Council-Members