Maria Rivera is a mom with two kids. She lives across the street from a playlot in the Bucktown community, a neighborhood going upscale fast.
Ellenor Johnson is a neighbor. Her children are grown. But she likes the playlot too.
To look at them, you wouldn’t know that Maria and Ellenor are dangerous radical conservatives with a threatening agenda. But they have weird ideas about the Erhler playlot on Cortland Street.
You’re probably asking, “What’s a playlot got to do with me?”
But that’s what happens with a radical notion. People think it doesn’t affect them. Then it spreads and it’s too late. The next thing you know, you’re wearing black turtlenecks and burning the flag.
The Maria/Ellenor conspiracy threatens not only Bucktown, but also neighborhoods across the city. If they’re not stopped, the suburbs will be next. Their wacky radical ways could seep out into the rest of the Midwest.
But you can’t truly savor the conspiracy unless you know some of the background.
The Erhler playlot is small, but nice, in an up-and-coming community where working class folks live next to new $350,000 homes.
The Chicago Park District has been funding improvements for the playlot. It’s the kind of urban success story that makes Mayor Richard Daley smile.
The playlot has new landscaping, more sand and wood chips under the playground equipment for the kids. There’s a new 8-foot fence and a gate that’s locked at night to keep out the undesirables and opened again in the morning.
And it’s used by the tots of the working-class Latino families who remain in the neighborhood, and by the Anglo tots of professional folks with money and suburban roots. Sure there’s tension, but most people try to get along.
But then Maria and Ellenor had to go and make trouble. They pushed their revolutionary schemes about how the playlot should be run, without concern for the rights of others. And of course, they upset a lot of people.
Especially peeved are the folks the mayor is trying to entice from the suburbs–the high-intensity professional class. Many of these folks have dogs instead of kids.
Sit down and take a deep breath, because the Maria/Ellenor conspiracy is quite shocking. It might curdle your milk. It goes like this:
Playlots are for little kids. Playlots are not for dogs who do their business where little kids play.
I told you they’re dangerous radicals.
“People with dogs want the playlot open at all times, to let their dogs run around,” Ellenor proclaimed. “They become very belligerent when a mother gets on her phone to call police. They swear at parents in front of their children, they put feces in the drinking fountain. The dogs do their business around the playground equipment, on the slides.”
And Maria chimed in with her own right-wing views.
“You’ve got low-income families who can’t send their kids to camp. So it’s important to have the park free for kids,” Maria complained.
Angry dog-owners–let’s call them dog parents–have been forced into standing up for their dogs’ rights to have play groups. So they’re distributing fliers around the neighborhood and calling meetings.
They’re upset that the playlot in Bucktown and other neighborhoods are locked at night to keep the dogs out. They’re protesting the enforcement of the city leash laws in parks and some arrests that have been made for breaking into the lot. The Park District has not yet made the parks safe for dogs running free.
So any nitwit can see that dogs and their parents are victims of discrimination.
Parents of human children get to dress their kids up in outfits, take them to the park, and chat while watching the kids play. So why can’t dog parents put little outfits on their dogs and take them out to play too?
This is America.
Fighting the good fight are dog parents led by Elizabeth Thompson and her pals. She’s angry that dog parents are not being consulted on what to do with the playlot and who can play there.
I can’t believe the gall of these self-appointed protectors of so-called children’s playlots.
Why shouldn’t human children, especially those who are just learning to walk and put their mouths on everything, play in dog feces?
And why shouldn’t strange dogs urinate on playground equipment that children touch with their hands?
Do these kids think they’re better than dogs or something?
So far, the city hasn’t quite figured out what to do about the growing tension between human parents and dog parents. There is no citywide policy to give dog parents their rights over these power-mad human toddlers. But City Hall better figure it out.
I’m in a rush; so I’ve got to go. I’ve got to pick the dog up at day-care and get home to let the kids out of the back yard.
