Tales form Tuthill

There's never a dull day in the park. No, I take that back. There have been a few dull days, but those were rainy days. Those days don't count, because a park isn't really a park without people in it.

Anyway, tonight there was more craziness than usual, and all in the last hour. I had been running a sprinkler on some new grass seed for most of the evening and was on my way to turn off the valve by the bathroom when I walked through a group of six guys arguing about somebody's girlfriend and what another of them had done, knowing full well that she had a boyfriend. It was tense, and at least one of them was ready to bring it to blows right there. I was very much relieved when one side of the fight got in their cars and left without incident. That left me rather freaked, so I was very glad that Audrey came with me to lock up, especially when we got to Yankton and discovered that one of the restrooms had apparently lost power, since all the lights were off, inside and out, even with the switches on. Had I been alone, I don't know how I would have handled checking the dark bathrooms to make sure they were empty. So, when we got back to Tut I had to call the night supervisor to check out and report the power outage. Unfortunately, he wasn't answering his cell phone. The usual guy has Mondays off, so I gave the fill-in the benefit of the doubt, but he never answered. In the end, I called my boss at home and he told me to try one more time and then just leave, promising that he would explain to his superiors tomorrow why I never checked out properly and wrote down a half hour of over time. (I'm already getting over time this week, so I'm not sure why that part matters...) Leaving the shop later than usual, in a night that was darker than I usually experience, it was such a blessing to have the presence of a friend.

And that was just today. Yesterday a little girl fell off the playground and dislocated her elbow. The mother was absolutely hysterical, and they chose to wait for an ambulance instead of taking her in themselves. So I stood by and watched, not knowing what to do. Technically, we're not supposed to do anything if the people involved have everything under control. And we had a thief. A disc golfer had his bag stolen, along with the 20 or so discs inside. (For anyone who doesn't know, that's at least $250 worth of stuff) He even filed a police report and enlisted the park workers' help in looking to see if it had been stashed in the trees. As it turns out, the kids had hidden it in the corner of the park that they treat as a hideout, and the owner found it himself. That made my job easier.

I don't remember anything particularly exciting about Saturday. I guess that was one of those rare boring days. My only other real adventure was nearly a month ago, but since I never blogged about it, I'll tell it now.

So we've replaced all the upper disc golf tees with cement pads now to make them better. (In the process we also moved a couple of them, but that's not the point at the moment.) On the day that we poured the last two tees, me only job for the evening was to watch the cement dry and make sure no one wrote in it. Simple enough, right? Unfortunately, the two tees were pretty far apart, making it impossible to have a good view of both at the same time. I happened to look at tee 4 right when a girl was writing in the cement and saw her continue playing disc golf with her friends. they say me calling my supervisor to report it and got away, which was terribly frustrating. Luckily, most of the Tut kids just go sit at Tomar when they leave my park. So I spotted her later that night while I was locking up. This time, the cop got there in time to talk to her, and she gave up her two friends, who had also written in the cement. Ah, sweet justice.

Usually, the excitement is smaller changes of pace. Like today, for instance. Jack, who mows all the grass in the park, has decided to trim every tree in the park because they've been left for far too long. What he's done so far is a great improvement. Because he's doing that, I get to spend time hauling branches away in the gator, which is much more fun that it sounds. At least, I prefer it to weeding all night, which is the other option.

So there you have it--an almost detailed account of my experience as a park worker. For these next two weeks I'll be working every night and getting overtime pay, so I fully expect to acquire some more stories for your reading pleasure.

-Kim