Memory Park
Originally written in November 2021 for HIST 502: Introduction to Public History.
Synopsis: Can history be neutral? How do we treat with the past? What should we do with all those old statues? Follow the groundskeeper of Memory Park, where the past stands at eye-level and the weeds are always hungry. 1227 words
The gravel crunches beneath your work boots as you make your way along the maintenance road. The pale sky hangs blue and orange-gold above you, the gathering clouds stained pink by the slow climb of the drowsy sun. Birdsong trickles out through the dense crowns of the trees. Long grass softly brushes your pantlegs. The chain-link fence that marks the edge of the service yard holds back a flood of shrubs, allowing them to thrust a few green stems through the gaps. The world in this hour feels softly hushed, and the gentle breeze carries the faint smells of crushed grass and rain. As you push through the gate in the wall of green, you’re reminded of a fact that the girl at the visitor center once shared with you.
“Did you know,” she had said, “that people in Victorian times had picnics in cemeteries? Yeah, and the kids would play there too. Public parks weren’t really a thing back then. Cemeteries were the only green spaces they had.”
You check in, fill a bucket with water, and load it onto the golf cart along with your tools. You sit down behind the wheel and take a moment to savor the cool of the morning before you start the engine. The cart jostles slightly as it rolls down a dirt path beneath the arching branches of the trees. The water in the bucket sloshes. As you roll past the EMPLOYEES ONLY sign, you make your plans for the morning.
At Memory Park, your duties as groundskeeper are relatively light. You maintain the trails and pick up garbage, but there’s little in the way of landscaping to take care of. The county’s vision for the park was of a place where nature could take its course. “Rewilding”, you think, was the term they used. You remember a message in the guestbook colorfully describing it as “a place to watch plants swallow up the statues.”
Oh, yeah. You take care of the statues too.
Not too much care. Just enough to not make a statement.
If such a thing were possible.
The dirt path leads you past the scattered statues, separated from each other by waving swaths of grass and wildflowers. Once, they may have stood on plinths, but now they rest with their feet on the ground, the same height as anybody else. Some of them have names: Forrest, Calhoun, Sherman, Junípero Serra. Others you can’t immediately recall, or had no names to begin with. Four young Confederates stand in a cluster beneath a maple tree, watching you pass with hollow eyes. One of them clutches his rifle with both hands, his head at his feet and the beginnings of a bird’s nest in the cradle of his neck. Other statues you pass stand half-cloaked in creepers, or speckled white on head and shoulders from bird droppings. These you do not clear away. Nature is taking its course.
Someone has spray-painted the word “MURDERER” onto the chest of an equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson. You stop the cart, get down, and inspect it. His eyes have been X-ed out in similar fashion, and various obscenities are painted on the sides of his horse. (What did the horse ever do?) Each stroke of red spray-paint seems to throb with the painter’s anger. There was vengeance in this gesture.
Nothing some soap and water can’t fix. You grab your bucket and sponge the paint away, as per protocol. The water runs red from between the fingers of your sponge-hand and pools at Jackson’s feet. You leave him to dry in the sun: there’s a lot more park left to cover.
In the southeast section, you pick up the remains of a picnic left beneath a chasteberry tree.
In the southwest section, you pause at the edge of the pond to watch a heron fish.
In the northwest section, you come across a statue in the middle of a clearing. At the feet of the nameless Texas Ranger blooms a crop of American flags and red-white-and-blue pinwheels. A Beanie Baby rests in the crook of his arm as he reaches for his Walker Colt. You stand for a moment, watching the pinwheels turn and the flags flutter in the breeze. Pride and patriotism bubble up from the ground in this place.
After quickly glancing around, you gather up the items and place them in the back of the cart, as per protocol. The tiny yellow blooms they had hidden peep through the grass. The flags and pinwheels are still in good condition, and it seems a waste to throw them out. You consider donating them to the local daycare.
You spend a little more time on your rounds, picking up the odd bit of trash, as well as a sticker-covered Hydroflask for the lost-and-found. You take a short break at the northern edge of the park. Rolling hills stretch before you, the paintbox dripples and brushstrokes of summer wildflowers breaking up the waving expanse of green. Some rumors had been going around about expanding the park, and you imagine bronze soldiers and marble missionaries gazing at the hazy blue mountains beyond.
The last stop on your rounds is the front gate, which you unlock and push creakingly open before returning to your cart. You unpack a sack breakfast and a thermos of coffee. The wind pushes flocks of fattened clouds across the blue field of the sky, and you watch them for a while, your eyes watering slightly from the intensity of the color.
A slight rustling to your left draws your attention. You take another drink of coffee, then get up from your seat to investigate.
In the middle of a stand of trees, a man in shorts and a gray hiking jacket kneels at the base of a statue of Jefferson Davis. He’s taking a charcoal rubbing of the nameplate at the base. After a moment, he gets up and waves to you. “Are you the groundskeeper here?” he asks.
“Yep, that’s me,” you reply.
“I just wanted to thank you for what you’re doing,” says the man. He’s fair-skinned, with big, guileless blue eyes and a full, neatly trimmed brown beard. “Like, preserving all this stuff? That’s important. I mean, I’m no Confederate or anything but… this is history.”
“It sure is,” you reply. The man turns around and puts his hands on his hips to survey the grove.
“This is a good place,” he continues. “Lotta nature here. You know, I read on the Internet somewhere that it takes 40,000 years for a bronze statue to break down.”
“Is that right?”
“Mm-hmm.” He turns to face you, then glances back over his shoulder and adds, “’Let us cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees.’”
You do not respond.
The man gives you a cheerful wave and starts to leave. You get closer to the statue and look at it for a little while. Your eyes are at the same level as Davis’s. The man has left his charcoal stick at the base, and you consider throwing it away as you pick it up.
Instead, you call after the man, “Hey, you forgot your charcoal,” and he thanks you as he takes it back.
You sit down at the base of the largest tree and linger for a while in the shade.
