Mysteries of Montrose Point

I know I should've spent what there was of my Sunday afternoon preparing my place for the probable arrival of my older brother on Friday, but it was too darn nice a day to be indoors. Instead, I took a long stroll through the ethnic patchwork of the lakeside park. Entering at Lawrence, I first passed the gay softballers, then the Latino volleyballers and footballers. A couple of times around the point, the it was back skirting the puzzling huge Korean picnic, through the yuppiefull dog beach, and past scattered bits of a South Asian contingent to my place again.

The point was amazing: So many birds zinging back in forth it was like a visit to the great Forest Park Birdcage in St. Louis. A friendly Hispanic dogwalker with a charming accent was coming towards me as I arrived there. "Isn't it incredible?" he asked rhetorically, "So much life!" As sort of an amusing counterpoint to the lively chirping birds, children were darting through the underbrush screaming with joy as their guardians strolled placidly across the meadows. Apparently they didn't get the memo! (According to a recent issue of the Reader, which featured excerpts from a birder's journal of the avian and human hijinks of the "Magic Hedge", the details of the men's illicit activities made it into the neighbourhood rag.)

These trips are always filled with inexplicable encountres. Some of the most prominent:

• The Bouquet At the base of the chain-link fence encircling the construction site at the point were the stuck into the stand the remains of a large bouquet of flowers. Possibly two, in fact, since the yellow roses seemed somewhat at odds with the blend of mums, daisies, tulips, and other seasonal blossoms. It was withered but not dessicated; there was still moisture in the wrinkled petals. I overheard one man describe it to another as "superstitious."
• The car It seems the breakwater is complete and the margin of earth around it has been graded. I'm not sure what the Parks Dept. is waiting for--are the landscapers busy on another project? In any case, there was a unmarked tan sedan parked on the lot. After a time, I watched it make a lazy turn, coming so close to me that I could've spoken to the driver, a young blonde man, without raising my voice. It finally halted by a flock of gulls close to the water's edge. I watched it for a while, but the occupant didn't step out or anything. Then, after several idle minutes, he suddenly took off, raising a cloud of dust as he raced across the south side of the point to the exit. WTF?
• The Korean gathering I saw a poster for this but couldn't read it. On my way east, I saw the start of a footrace and heard speechifying from the bandstand. On my way back west, I went closer. That's when I realised that each tent belonged to another Heimatgruppe and suddenly the word palto ("eight provinces") in the name of the event made sense to me. The one closest to me was labeled "Kangwen/Ceycwu", which seemed bizarre since these two provinces are linked neither geographically nor culturally. Then I came across a chart for a playoff between teams and realised that they may have been lumped together for reasons of size. I hung around for some truly terrible karaoke featuring what looked like the oldest men from each grouping.