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I'm on a little staycation from work right now. I don't have anything big planned, but I am trying to get out and do stuff. Today I drove downtown to help rebuild a local park that burnt down in an arson fire earlier this year. The original park (also volunteer-built) was huge, and this new one is going to be even bigger. I was on a team with a nice biracial couple who talked about bringing their son to the park after it was all rebuilt.
Most volunteers got simple jobs like digging, painting, cutting boards, etc. -- but not us! Together we assembled a big, four-person seesaw and a spinner. (And you practically had to be an engineer just to read the directions!) A spinner is a sort of big, flat disc that a kid stands on, and the weight of the kid and the angle of the disc makes them spin around in circles. Just the thought of it is enough to make me dizzy! They didn't have these when I was a kid; I first saw one on the playground in Villers-Cotterets. After it was built, a few kids hopped on and spun around (there were lots of kids there with their parents or church groups). Success!
(There are a few different types of spinners. The one we built was a stand-up spinner that looked kinda like this.)
They were both HARD to put together, but we did it and had enough time left over to get snacks from the concession stand. I had Cheeto's and a blue bubblegum sno-cone -- yum! I think it counted as the mitzvot of tikkun olam, so I was glad to be a part of it, and it was touching to see how many people from the community came out to help rebuild. But I was filthy by the time my volunteer shift was over -- covered in sweat, sawdust, and grime! Ugh! Update: I visited the completed park here.
A few other things I hope to do this week: see Athena, have coffee with my sassy Jewish grandfather, visit the Avenue of Flags at the cemetery on Veteran's Day, see a production of The Diary of Anne Frank at the local theater, and attend my first bar mitzvah. Which reminds me, today I overheard a middle-school-aged boy at the park say, "And on Friday I'm going to Jakob's bar mitzvah." Yeah, me too, kid!
Most volunteers got simple jobs like digging, painting, cutting boards, etc. -- but not us! Together we assembled a big, four-person seesaw and a spinner. (And you practically had to be an engineer just to read the directions!) A spinner is a sort of big, flat disc that a kid stands on, and the weight of the kid and the angle of the disc makes them spin around in circles. Just the thought of it is enough to make me dizzy! They didn't have these when I was a kid; I first saw one on the playground in Villers-Cotterets. After it was built, a few kids hopped on and spun around (there were lots of kids there with their parents or church groups). Success!
(There are a few different types of spinners. The one we built was a stand-up spinner that looked kinda like this.)
They were both HARD to put together, but we did it and had enough time left over to get snacks from the concession stand. I had Cheeto's and a blue bubblegum sno-cone -- yum! I think it counted as the mitzvot of tikkun olam, so I was glad to be a part of it, and it was touching to see how many people from the community came out to help rebuild. But I was filthy by the time my volunteer shift was over -- covered in sweat, sawdust, and grime! Ugh! Update: I visited the completed park here.
A few other things I hope to do this week: see Athena, have coffee with my sassy Jewish grandfather, visit the Avenue of Flags at the cemetery on Veteran's Day, see a production of The Diary of Anne Frank at the local theater, and attend my first bar mitzvah. Which reminds me, today I overheard a middle-school-aged boy at the park say, "And on Friday I'm going to Jakob's bar mitzvah." Yeah, me too, kid!
