Well folks, to continue my tour, today I drove over to the newly renovated Jewel Box to begin my morning walk.
I parked on the golf course side of the street and walked along the main sidewalk to the glass building. What was striking were the exquisite outside flower displays on the way to the building, especially featuring two large water ponds with water flower displays. Magnificent.
The building is much less interesting that it used to be. Inside it is quite simple and plain, none of the business of the old mill look it used to have. Quite uninteresting and they charge $1.00 to get in.
Then I walked around the grounds. It is simply magnificent. Several picnic and regular benches, lovely trees, flower displays spread around all over the place. No people (10 AM on a simply magnificent cool and sunny day), very quiet, sound of birds, lots of squirrels. Butterflies abound. It is a lovely spot; would be specially nice to sit in the shade on one of the benches to just chat.
After wearing down my knee a bit on the circle, I drove round the ball fields. For those who haven't kept up. that was another area of major renovation. The major work was done on the fields that are just west of the mounted police station, across from Forest Park Junior College and across Oakland from where the Highlands used to be.
They renovated all the fields. Right along Hwy 40 is a football field and it even has a scoreboard. In fall they will put up some stands there and this is a major place for leagues which involve lots of city kids who play football. Younger kids.
The street opposite Hwy 40 is Clayton Ave as it comes through the park. At the northwest corner of the fields is a fenced in softball stadium which is for fast pitch soft ball, I think played almost exclusively now by girls. Men and women who play softball these days primarily play slow pitch. [Addendum in May 2005 – That turned out to be a baseball field and is where Forest Park Community College plays all its home games.]
Then, running the full length of those fields all the way to the mounted police station they have put in fields and huge light standards and some new bathrooms as well. There must be 8-10 softball / soccer fields (depending on season) in that large area, but as best I can tell so far Forest Park has not attracted many leagues which use those fields.
Triple A golf course remains virtually unchanged. Still a public course that does take memberships. Same 9 holes it always had where so many of us boys caddied. I learned to play golf there, taking advantage of caddie's day every Tuesday morning.
Maybe tomorrow I'll continue on west and walk in the area of the two lakes east and north of the Planetarium, and in the Steinberg Skating Rink areas. So very much was doing in this area and it is now just spectacular.
But my legs are worn out. I'm pushing them and the new knee perhaps a bit too much, but is sure is fun even if I limp around the rest of the day, sore as can be.
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