I have known the name Bywater Park my entire life. The first house I remember living in was just a…read morefew streets away from here, but you know how things go when you're just a tyke--you hear names, you go places, but you don't really pay attention and put it all together.
I was out for a nostalgic drive the other day and wound up driving past the old house. In the recesses of my mind, I remembered thinking that there is a park nearby. I have vague recollections of my dad walking there. Of a crabapple tree, and him teaching me what a crabapple tree is. They didn't look like apples to me, and he explained they're not edible. These are only hazy memories; we moved from this house when I was seven years old.
I drove out of the neighborhood and followed the haze of my mind. I remember running away from home once, but not getting far as I was not allowed to cross the street. So I remembered the route was outside of my street, because only dad could take me there by crossing the street, and I drove beyond the boundaries of my former universe. Left. Then straight. Then right.
But there was no park.
I had sworn it was there. But it also had, as I mentioned, a mysterious place in my mind. Like it was our own little private park. Like it was some kind of secret.
So I zoomed out my GPS and scanned for nearby parks. I did see a large patch of green, but it was a ways away. Curious, I set a course, drove down a hill, left, up, and out onto a busy street. This wasn't it. It couldn't have been; this was too busy and not our secret.
Still curious, I finished the route and saw a sign for Bywater Park. The name swung open a sealed door in my mind with such a clang that I turned in and immediately was that boy again. The tennis courts. The pavilion. the baseball diamond. This was our park!
Only the upper parking lot was open, and everything below was gated off. I got out, walked down the hill (did there used to be a water canal here? I don't recall) and all the way down the parking lot. As I neared the north end of this narrow park, it felt like I was close to my old neighborhood. And then, there at the very tail, I saw a little opening in the fence. Well, I must have had a giant grin on my face as I made my way through the opening to a tiny, narrow little walkway between two fences. It's long and skinny (like, one-person wide) and as I neared the end and popped out, there I was. Next to the house where dad had taught me about crabapples, just three streets from the old house.
Why do I tell you about this? Because that's the feel of Bywater. Like a hidden little spot way up on the east side. Like a little park where the junior baseball kids play in diamonds with REAL halfway-underground dugouts. Where very tidy tennis courts are used by Cottonwood Heights Rec Center but are open for citizens. Where a quiet, happy park sits at the end of a secret neighborhood shortcut. This is where dads take their kids, where moms meet up, where neighbors congregate, and kids live out diamond dreams.
Decades had passed since he took his son to the park with the secret entrance, and I thought about how much has changed. My dad retired the week prior. My whole life, the whole time I've known him, he's gotten up, put on a suit, and gone to work. What must he had thought on those days when we went for a walk? Is there anything still the same today as it was back then?
As I was thinking about this, I made my way back up the narrow passageway into the park. Just then, a dad and his son entered the walkway, the little boy toddling along pushing his toy lawnmower. They were just finishing their visit to Bywater Park and walking home.