Make work, not sense

There is, all around Sohoe, an initiative to spend government money and justify it by saying we're making park and recreation area improvements. Perhaps this is happening in a neighbourhood near you?

The large poster boards at each of the above mentioned park and recreation areas list the agencies involved, somewhat like the opening credits of a Hollywood blockbuster: brought to you by XY Agency; Sponsorship provided by LTD Inc.; MDF for this sign supplied by Bob.

Our lovely playgrounds, which had very serviceable and heavily-used equipment of the usual variety - slides, swings, climbers, teeter-totters - were pulled out roughly a month ago. Then nothing else happened.

Improvement, before your very eyes! Government style!

Today, to the great delight of Four and Five, there was construction activity at our Park and Recreation Area. There was a digger and a dump truck and a bright orange plastic safety fence.

We chose a spot under some big trees and settled in to watch the goings on. If there's anything those Peanuts love more than Monday morning garbage pickup, it's Thursday morning Park and Recreation Area construction.

The digger guy was busy pushing dirt around into piles, then flattening the piles, then scooping them up in the bucket and dropping it into the back of the dump truck. Several times he stretched the long arm of his machine so far we were afraid he was going to tip it over. But he was wearing an orange safety vest with a fluorescent yellow 'x' on the back, which reassured us he was a trained professional. Digger guy then became dump truck driver guy. He got into the big machine, and drove to the path that circles the perimeter of the park and drove about 3/8ths of the way around, beep beeped his way backwards to another section of our (not overly large) park, and dumped the dirt he had so carefully piled and scooped only 30 feet away! Then he drove his truck to where he started from, and continued the process: pile, flatten, pile, scoop, drive, reverse, dump, drive.... and so on.

Pop would have shaken his head at what surely was a system designed by an engineer. Grandpa Nut would have hopped the fence and asked the young safety vest if he needed any help, questioning his methodology every step of the way, and sharing a story about how back in 1982, he and his buddies built a park with nothing but some shovels and some homemade nails.

Seriously: a digger and a big dump truck to move dirt 30 feet? This is supposed to be a 'we're creating jobs' scenario. How about hiring three guys with shovels and a conveyor belt to do the work? Heck, five guys and a wheel barrow!

All the same, Four and Five sure enjoyed watching the goings on, while J and I enjoyed watching the safety vest (hush now! Nothing salacious here! We were laughing at the absurdity of it all.) I later biked past another park, further afield from home, and saw new equipment had been installed. Good things are coming. One dump truck at a time.