Category Archives: Razorback Greenway

Northwest Arkansas, Razorback Greenway, Springdale

Barbed Wire, Safety, and Assholes

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Barbed wire?

By now, I imagine most people in NWA heard about the 72-year-old man who was badly injured when a strand of barbed wire across the trail in South Fayetteville caught him in the neck as he rode his bike.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of trail walking in the dark. While I’ve walked primarily along Springdale’s incredible portion, I’ve spent some time on some of Fayetteville’s trails, too. I’ve joked about the endless spider webs across the trails on some early mornings, so the idea of hitting wire does give me pause. But only for a brief second.

It’s always a possibility that someone will misbehave. In fact, it’s likely. I know I run the risk of booby traps, nails, or weirdos (weirder than me, even!) accosting me as I enjoy the trails. Barbed wire is a particularly criminal item to use to hurt those who walk, run or cycle. There are situations where I would never see it as I approached, especially at 3 a.m.

As for Springdale, I routinely see patrols on the trails. I’m not sure how it is managed in Fayetteville, but anyone alleging that Springdale isn’t doing a great job of maintaining visibility isn’t paying attention. Even with the best vigilance, though, it’s impossible to guarantee that lesser people won’t attempt all manner of shenanigans. The police can’t be everywhere – but we can.

Yesterday, as I walked around part of the new George Park complex, I surprised a family sleeping in a white sedan. Based on the what I saw, they were probably homeless and using their car to park in less obvious places. When I came upon them, I had just emerged from the blackest part of the trail in that area, the one I wrote about a few weekends ago. When I was going through it, it went through my mind that someone could have put up 147 strands of barbed wire and that some anonymous person might find me crawling out the next morning, looking like Rambo after round 11. As for that family, it didn’t occur to me to react to them with suspicion, just an appreciation that the weather wasn’t an additional discomfort for them.

On the other hand, two weekends ago, I almost stepped on someone who was sleeping inside the covered bus area in front of the public library, after I walked past a large man who was intoxicated as he haphazardly ambled along the pond at the park. I wasn’t nervous, as the only danger he presented was the one he did to the English language as he tried to speak to me as he passed me. People are generally great. It’s up to us to follow through when we see things. People walking while intoxicated are amusing, not threatening, even if they look like defensive linemen.

Which brings me to my poorly-written point…

I’ve walked mile after mile in the last few months, seeing so many sides of this great city. As you might have noticed, I’m a huge fan of the trail system and of all the changes in Springdale.

However, there’s a lot to be done here. In my own neighborhood, I watched as a 4-wheeler careened around my little corner of Springdale. He jumped the curb, rode the sidewalks, and made a car come to a screeching halt as he cut in front. Kids were walking home from school at the time, as the buses had just emptied at the side entrances to the neighborhood. It’s not the first time he’s done this. A family down the street gets on dirt bikes and rides at 80 mph, doing wheelies down the middle of the street. Another neighbor drinks and drives. A few weeks ago, I watched as an obviously drunk driver tried to use his clutch ran over the curb and stalled his Honda. (I wrote about that, too, as a humorous anecdote.) Dozens of people witness the idiots such as those on the 4-wheeler, motorcycles, or careening vehicles. Until we stop looking the other way and tolerating them, it can’t get better.

I could list more, but you get the idea: people are going to be assholes. It’s up to us to let the police know there’s a problem. Before you ask, yes, I’ve called the police when I observe these things – and not anonymously, either.

One final anecdote, if you don’t mind. I wrote a story one afternoon this week, one about the futility of insisting that one area is safer to walk than another, or that it’s better to walk in the daylight. I didn’t post it, though, because I struggled with the implied prejudice of it. There are some beautiful places near my house and I love walking them. But to say that it is ‘safe’ to be anywhere is simply not true. The opposite side of Friendship road isn’t within Springdale city limits. There are some strange residents on that side, ones dedicated to a life of crime, if not mayhem. Some of them are the “AFTER” posters you would see during a drug PSA. A driver, for whatever reason, decided that he was going to spew his venom on me as he exited the Springdale city limits. He thought I was Latino, and I think he hesitated from escalating his anger because he might not have been sure who I really was or if I was armed. I might have had to throw him across the field, WWE-style if he attacked me, or run away, screeching. Those who know me well can imagine how ridiculously fast I would have been running through the field at that point.

I don’t look at the angry driver or the minor idiots and lessen my view of people. We’re always going to have miscreants and assholes making our life more difficult. Safety and security are the goals of those we pay to protect us. Safety, though, is an illusion. I’m as likely to get injured on the sidewalk outside my own house as I am to be decapitated by barbed wire on one of our excellent trails – and probably by that biscuit-eating idiot on the 4-wheeler.

For those who asked, I’m not concerned about barbed wire along the trails.

If you recall, I had a plane crash on my residence almost 30 years ago, on a clear Saturday, September morning.

You can’t take it personally when life drops the anvil on your cartoonish head.

You can, however, let someone know if you see someone putting the anvil up in a tree.

Northwest Arkansas, Razorback Greenway

A Saturday Morning

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If we are lucky enough we each have our own private Narnia, our own distinct lantern rendered invisible to others, hovering at the periphery of our minds. As we travel it is waiting to provide the dash of missing depth to our surroundings. Sometimes those of us who see our lanterns with greater frequency forget that many people are simply trying to get down the path and have no interest in such things. Perhaps it is an old refrain to you now, hearing me repeat it so often, but the world is a much different place at 4 in the morning and magic seems to lurk nearby with an intangible presence.

During my entire walk, the only light was the one gracing the distant parking lot.

The new trail I chose this morning didn’t need a visitor’s tally. There was no doubt that I was the first person to tread the cooled path this morning. A 1,000 arachnid Finish Lines graced my steps, each one a dark surprise in the wee morning hours. I felt like I had sprinted through a gauntlet of cotton candy after 15 minutes. I could only imagine how many spiders were measuring my neck and back with their spindly legs.

Even though it was barely 4 a.m. I could hear a high melody far off to my right. Having seen “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” I of course immediately deduced that I too would be found in the breaking morning light, nothing except empty and discarded clothing as evidence of my disappearance. Unlike Pete, though, I wasn’t prepared to satisfy my curiosity if becoming a toad were involved. I do wish I had known the origin of the music this morning. Anyone listening to such music at such an hour would have to be either a very interesting person or a very frightening one, a Schrödinger’s surprise for psychopaths.

I encountered no one on the trail. It’s possible though that a hundred unseen people were standing near the trail, watching me as I passed. The clouds granted darker cover to the night and the trail I walked was canopied above me for much of the distance. An owl hooted nearby and startled me more than I would care to admit. I had headphones, but wasn’t using them, both because of the delicious coolness of the night air, but also because the insects apparently had seen the movie “Spinal Tap,” and had voted to turn up the chirping to “11” on nature’s dial. Even now, sitting here in front of this modern electronic window to the world, I can hear only the box fan we use to help us sleep the quiet sleep of death and the wall of insects outside.

When I returned to my car, I stopped and admired the statue of General Covfefe, who valiantly fought so many years ago to ensure that locals could endlessly argue about the vestiges of racism.

Razorback Greenway, Springdale

Early Morning Delights

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To all those who followed me later on the trails, you’re welcome. I didn’t do the spider dance voluntarily but I did it repeatedly and with great enthusiasm on the dark trails, most of which was carpeted with a dank tapestry of leaves from last night’s torrential rains. I’m assuming the spider dance counts toward one’s cardiovascular regimen. There were 2 or 3 spots where the fallen leaves hid the dimly-defined edges of the trail. These were particularly laden with spider webs. Some of these spiders are enormous and when they have the time to do their work without interruption, their webs become as thick as my grandma’s favorite thread.
 
The only other vehicle or person I encountered the entire length of my walk was a patrol car exiting an access road leading to a school as if the officer had returned to brush up on his ABCs. (‘A’ is for arrest, ‘B’ is for breaking and entering…) Had the officer seen me a few minutes before, doing my spider web electrocution dance, he or she might have stopped to ask if me I was alright. As it was, I was probably just a silhouette in the eerie darkness.
 
I parked my car at was once Silent Grove Church. The church has long disbanded, once a hub for fervent locals to share their community gospel. One late night, over 3 decades ago, I parked my Dodge Fury there and ran for miles, so many that I could barely lift my legs when I finished. This was before the road was anything except a serpentine and narrow road which was sparsely populated before Springdale had aspirations of even reaching its municipal tentacles to those places on the periphery of anything substantial. The thought of a trail access in that area would have been ridiculed by everyone except the most visionary back in those days. When I finished my run, I laid across the hood of my car and somehow fell asleep, as it was probably 4 a.m. or later on that night so many years ago. The next morning, the sound of a honk and a school bus door swishing open awakened me. I’m sure I was quite a sight to the kids on the bus; the driver certainly was wondering whether I was dead, drunk, or dead drunk.
 
I recognize my privilege. I have the good health to walk, a car which gets me to these new places, and energy leftover from working, and a city which grew out its parochial insistence toward maintaining the imaginary “what-once-was.” These trails and places would not have been possible if those who demanded allegiance to the past had been the most effective voices.
 
Now that I’m older, I find myself laughing at the ease with which I could fall asleep in strange places. (Before my back began to groan like a dissatisfied older lady waiting at the store register, her 16 items stacks neatly on the counter, waiting for her impatient turn to question the cashier about each and every item.) As we age, almost all of us demand our nightly rituals, with each pillow fluffed just so, the fan at the exact speed to comfort us, and our world categorized around us. Our affluence estranges us to adventure.
 
This morning, there was no meteor shower nor anything particularly eventful – just an array of small delights: the sliver of a slowly rising crescent moon on the horizon, the rush of the creek underneath, an immense tree fallen next to the bridge, probably having surrendered to the insurmountable push of water yesterday evening, the feeling or smooth and yet uncertain footing across an infinite number of fallen leaves. The air was so heavy with moisture that I could trick myself into believing that it was pushing back against me as I walked.
 
Out there in the darkness, there was an absence of bickering saltines, no one making fatuous arguments regarding predatory relics in our evolving midst, no pointing fingers of superiority toward other beliefs. Just the methodical hum of a billion insects and feet moving forward, step, step, step. I walked much further than I intended to. The miles, though, seemed to accumulate without notice.
 
Alone, with my thoughts, wondering and with wonder.
Razorback Greenway, Springdale, Travel

Meteor Shower Surprise in Springdale

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Thanks again, Springdale. This morning, I walked along the Razorback Greenway on the north side of Backus, near AQ. It was a fortuitous choice.

I was incredibly lucky because not only did I have the entire trail to myself again this morning, but as I walked north, a portion of the Perseid Meteor shower put on a show for me. Frankly, I had forgotten about the possibility of seeing anything. As I reached one of the beautiful steel bridges crossing Spring Creek, the trees relented and the sky opened above me and I stopped and stared as a meteor slashed across above me. The moon was bright and behind me, but no other lights invaded the wide spot afforded by the bridge and the creek beneath me. At 5 a.m., it was a delight to assume it would be the only meteor. Two more brilliant flashes arced across the sky above me. I had the urge to turn and say, “Did you SEE that?” but all the sane people were in bed, dreaming of their own fascinating sights.

So, it came to pass that I stood alone in the midst of nature, watching the sky drop burning reminders of the vastness of space. As I walked back, happy to have been witness to it, I saw a cat on the edge of the trail, walking ahead of me. I picked up my pace to see if it would spook. I turned on my flashlight app on my phone and lo and behold it was Pepé Le Pew, bright white-striped tail now raised in alarm. I stepped back so quickly I think I traveled back in time, laughing at the idea of me returning home smelling of skunk.

When I returned to my car, I walked over to the new pavilion next to the old Heathman building and sat watching as the edges of the sky slowly brightened. Two more bright meteor falls greeted me. I wondered how many early risers might have witnessed these with me. Then again, I remembered that the city of Springdale had built all these places solely for me, to be discovered in singular succession. I will hoard these memories.

As I headed back east, toward home and my disoriented cat, a deep fog rolled in from the hilly terrain, blanketing my approach. As I write this, everything seems to have been draped by the most diaphanous of gauze. Had I not stood in the middle of the beautiful nothing and witnessed the meteors, I would have thought I had dreamed it.

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Razorback Greenway Interactive

Personal, Razorback Greenway, Springdale, Travel

An Early Morning Walk in Springdale

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When I went to bed last night, I instinctively set both alarms. Dawn double-checked, both due to her infallible nervous condition and the fact that she has an allergic reaction to klaxons blaring at 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning. (She also dislikes bagpipes and trumpet practice at that hour, too – a lesson I learned the hard way.)

Regardless, the feline alarm started meowing at 3:30 so any concerns about the alarm clock accidentally waking us were misguided. As I was practicing my dedication to the slumbering arts, I foolishly attempted to ignore the cat the first few times he attempted to rouse me from my horizontal and stuporous state. Ten minutes later, Güino upped his game by adding involuntary massage via cat paws to his repertoire. He’s been known to gnaw on exposed toes if necessary. One of these days I’m going to coat my toes in cayenne pepper to surprise him.

I decided to get up and take a walk earlier than I wanted to. I drove and parked near Emma Street in downtown Springdale. It was sublime. Again, I had the feeling that most of the inhabitants of the place had been whisked away by an unseen hand, leaving me the entire run of the place. The new Walter Turnbow park by Shiloh Square is spectacular enough during the day; seeing it without people before the sunrise was both eerie and interesting. I walked the trail in both directions, and only toward the end of my long walk did I meet any other souls on the dark trail. A motley group of youths was long-boarding the long incline toward the rear of the fire station. I could hear the crescendo of the wheels on the concrete long before I could discern their silhouettes approaching against the distant lights. Their laughter and jabber approached and just as quickly swept by, retreating to a whisper.

If you’ve never walked the trails in the dark, they are spectacular, especially the portion running near Bluff Cemetery. It never occurs to me to feel unsafe, either for the unlikely presence of uneven pavement or from nefarious passersby. French fries are a greater danger to me than walking in nocturnal environments could ever be.

I stopped and took my picture by the Chamber of Commerce sign facing Emma Street as my backdrop. The hideous logo adopted by Springdale a while back openly mocked me as I did, its alien crisscross of bizarre tic-tac-toe still reminding me that there is no accounting for taste. (Note: Springdale has done an amazing job these last few years, one worthy of frequent mention. The logo, however, is as inspirational as getting one’s face spritzed by underarm perspiration on a languid summer day.)

So far, each time I’ve chosen to walk somewhere different, I’ve found a little corner of Springdale that had been concealed to me. I appreciate all these people working to make these new places for me.