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Forest Park Review, Month xx, 2021
OPINION O U R
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V I E W
Things we like
plash pads at the pool: Forest Park’s park district keeps investing in the park. And we’re supporters. Last week in one of those always lame groundbreaking ceremonies — OK, the kids from the day camp were cool — the parks started work on three new splash pads at the periphery of the Aquatic Center. We had seen them as sort of stand-alone additions to the fun but district officials pointed to the $1.9 million project as essentially a first step in the gradual remaking of the entire pool complex. Forest Park was a municipal pioneer when it first added water slides and other more engaging attractions to the plain old pool a generation back. But such features wear out, get old or stale and need to be refreshed. The new “Candyland”-themed splash pads are a reflection of that effort. Can’t wait till next summer when the kids get to have new fun at the pool. New mission for the rec board: It has been gratifying watching in recent years as a rejuvenated Forest Park Recreation Board brought some life to the long-ignored pocket parks around town. Somewhere in its efforts, the rec board played a hand in finally shaking the small parks loose from an indifferent village hall and placing them into the more activist hands of the park district. Down side? It sort of left the rec board without a cause. So what does any determined group of volunteers do? It is finding a new way to offer help in town. Initial plans, and subject to what we assume will be welcome approval from the village council, are to become a volunteer hub for the entire village and to also be involved directly in some local events. Maybe some of those events could be held in a pocket park. Kribi Coffee grows: Forest Park’s distinctive coffee destination has long talked about plans to grow beyond Madison and Circle. Today we report Jacques Shalo and his family business will open a second location in one of Oak Park’s lesser-known historic buildings. It is the Boulevard Arcade building on South Boulevard near Marion Street. Now occupied by the Cross Fit shared working space, Kribi will have multiple audiences, including the shared-space office dwellers, neighbors in Oak Park’s new skyline buildings, and commuters (when there are more commuters again) heading to the Green Line or Metra. Cool to see a Forest Park icon spreading its wings. Welcome, Rev. Timothy Hein: Forest Park Baptist Church has gone two years without a permanent pastor. That ended this month with the arrival of the very interesting Rev. Hein. Drawn to the Harlem Avenue church partly for the diversity of its congregation, Hein and his family felt a kinship with the aspirations of this longtime Forest Park church. We offer our welcome as well.
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Coming together, forgiving, and picking up the litter
the Eastland Disaster, Iroquois Theater e all have a narrative of our lives that reflects how we interfire, St. Valentine’s Day massacre, Fort pret the way the world works. Sheridan, Haymarket Affair, and the Our collective narrative, as inmounds of indigenous people who once dividuals and as a community, lived here were all part of the narrative has exposed our vulnerabilities in the past 18 that afternoon. Baseball-playing evangemonths. list Billy Sunday and the man credited as After getting vaccinated, the slow return a father of African-American education, of going to restaurants, being with friends founder of Arkansas Pine Bluff Joseph and family and being back in the fold of our Carter Corbin, were remembered. With community has been happening gradually. The the enduring cemetery symbolism found fatigue of the resurgence, plus the normalcy of through the tour, reminders of the prereturning to school and the return of annual ciousness of life and our connection to the events hit me this weekend especially. spirit world abound. The return of Ribfest was a real triumph. This Wednesday night, starts Yom KipThis is an especially unique event, filled with pur, the Day of Atonement, and although smokers, heart and soul, artisan grillers, and I am not Jewish, it comes at a moment in our neighbors was a mark of resilience. Long my life that fits my narrative. Forgiveness is a powerful has the picnic grove waited to be filled with happiness force, and one that does not just flip on like a switch. and harmony and this past Saturday did not disappoint. Repentance and restoration take time and courage. With mixed emotions I was able to reflect, celebrate Accepting change and blemishes in narratives is part and mourn with the 9/11 comof forgiveness. One cannot munity on the 700 block of force forgiveness. Reality is Bonnie Brae in neighboring a social construction, restRiver Forest, whose now ing on awareness, trust and famous LemonAid stand has relationships. magnified into a powerful Jewish law says that one annual afternoon of raising should ask for forgiveness funds (nearly $500,000) and three times. It does not awareness for local charimean you will be granted ties, all directed by children such forgiveness. It takes and teens. For 20 years this courage to ask for forgiveblock has impacted the local ness and courage to grant organizations that are makit and accept that people do ing lemonade out of lemons change. every day, and it is truly a Somehow it fits right powerful event. Graves of children were common before penicillin. into my narrative, that Then I was among the Three-year-old Wilhelmine Hellwig, who died I saw Julietta Christina living who were able to biin 1884, is a somber reminder during the Forest Aguilera Rodriguez this cycle through Forest Home weekend. She is a gentle, Park Historical Society bike tour of Forest Home Cemetery with our thoughtsteady force advocating for Cemetery. ful and thought-provoking litter cleaning locally. She guide, Amy Binns-Calvey. shared that this Saturday Densely packed with storylines from the past and is World Litter Cleanup Day. She asks that I pick up (at present, the tour included remembering and admirleast) five pieces of litter and, optionally, to record it on ing artists in radio, painters, and Tiffany headstones. the litterati app, as she has a local mini-challenge she Reflections on pandemics past (small pox, diphtheria) is running #sufp2021. I am going to do that, and if you and present (gun violence). Organizations like United have an extra moment, for the sake of our collective Ancient Order of Druids and the Odd Fellows and the narrative, take a moment to pick up a few pieces of litPioneer Aid and Support Association were discussed. ter and maybe this small change will make our collecDifficult events that have influenced our present like tive narrative a little cleaner.
JILL WAGNER
