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Feedback: Writer says there's not enough to do around this town Our answer to letter.The Mayor and Council are doing a lot to address the matter. Plus ramblings & reflections: Columbia didn't have that much organized activity 50 years ago, and it wasn't a dull place. Working student, mother of two children, wants information I am the mother of two teenaged children? I work full-time and go to school so I can't travel out of town every time my children want to ride their skate boards or when they get bored. We have nothing for the children in this town to do. The park is a joke, the swimming pool is quite small. The children are not allowed to ride their skate boards or bikes anywhere near the Square. The city does not provide any other options for a safe place for the children to skateboard or do their bmx riding. Do you have any suggestion for what our youth can do this summer? If so would you post it on your site. -Name, email address on file Answer: A great deal is being done right now I hope that readers will suggest opportunities which will help your situation. It is really admirable that you are doing so much, holding down a job and going to school, and remembering the first priority, those two teen-age children. Your concerns are understandable Your concerns are shared by many. I don't have all the answers for you, but maybe increasing the discussion of the issues you raise may help. Fortunately, a great deal is being done about it. More organized recreation is coming Hard as it to believe,: the need to provide more recreation is exactly what the City Council is addressing today. The City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Board is being established, with the second reading of the ordinance to do so today, Monday, June 19, 2006. May be just a coinkydink, or it could be that great minds are synchronized. Mayor Bell and the City of Columbia plan to have more sidewalks and add some bikeways in town, and they listening to requests for bikeracks. Wouldn't be surprised to see a new park system Mayor Bell makes getting things for Columbia look easy. He and the current city council aren't afraid of big ideas. One can also sense that Mayor Bell is not about to let his only rival for Best Mayor in Kentucky (ergo, best Mayor in America), Jerry Abramson, get ahead of him. Mayor Abramson has expanded on the idea of Louisville being a city of parks, building on the heritage of the parks system designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Columbia has an Olmstead connection (In a way, Columbia has an Olmstead connection. Columbia, KY, author Yolanda Oostens biography of Victor Horta, "Horta in America" includes long entries on the famous Belgian architects contacts and conversations with Olmstead while Horta was America during the World War I era. )Parks are Abramson's big thing. A big Columbia park could steal the Louisville chief's thunder. One does gets the sense that the new Parks and Recreations Board will have a park to manage, whether it is through accepting the fairgrounds from the VFW, expanding it and making a world class small town park, or that an entirely new park be built elsewhere in Columbia. What an accomplishment that would be for the Mayor and Council! It would be even better if County Government joins the efforts. Joint projects are already working fantastically well. Look at the new Water Treatment Plant and the proposed Emergency Response Communications center. Both have aspects of merger. City of Columbia and Adair County government are working together to accomplish what they can't singly. Adair Countians are seeing that anything is possible, working together. Maybe that spirit of cooperation might reach out, beyond Adair County's borders, so that a YMCA could built. Glasgow did it. May Columbia and Greensburg and Campbellsville or Adair, Russell, and Cumberland Counties could join together to build a Y together. The building of the Green River Animal Shelter took three LBN Parkway counties to accomplish. A "Y" might also take several counties. Columbia didn't used to be a dull place Still, I can't think of very many organized activities in Columbia when I was growing up in the mid-1900s, and Columbia was never a dull place. Sorry to hear that it is now. Maybe the answer to the working mother's problem will come from within the family Very little upset my parents, except to announce, "There's nothing to do." And I can't ever remember saying. If anything, there was always too much to do. Back then we walked, read, rode bicycles, went to movies, caught fireflies, mowed lawns, explored, walked to the Dairy Queen, listened to the radio, made trips to the store, climbed trees, played croquet, went to vacation Bible school, delivered newspapers, ran errands for money, and watched the cars go by. That may not all be possible today. But it may create a new way of looking at the question of what to do. Fun vs. Entertainment. Watching someone else make their living It was fun. My friends and I did things ourselves, and actually eschewed organizations. Anything organized, from sports run by bully coaches to scouting, was shunned by most of them, as well. As Annie says in the movie, State & Main, "If you don't do it yourself, it ain't fun, it's entertainment." And, as you've heard, entertainment is watching someone else make their living. I do realize that not everybody shares my personal view. It's a bit Chelfian, (Momma's side of the family's attitudes) I admit. Just making the point, I guess, that while the community is working on providing organized recreation, and that is good, but from my point of view, recreation is more of an individual opportunity than an community responsibility. The one area our local governments completely missed the boat, though, brings out the old New Dealer in me. They completely let us down by not building stadium seating along the construction site for the new KY 61 connector road and the new interchange on the Louie B. Nunn. Watching that work was far better than cable television. We all ought to have had front row seats for this marvel. Your opinions are welcome. What else do you want the community to do to provide recreational opportunities. Write us: ed@columbiamagazine or linda@columbiamagazine.com This story was posted on 2006-06-19 09:01:22
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Adair Arts Council meets Thursday, public invited Happy Anniversary: Danny and Connie Phelps Big birthday list today, Saturday, June 17, 2006 City Council Special Called Meeting Mon, June 19, 2006 at 1pm Events scheduled two Saturdays in June at The Giles House Sheriff arrests daughter of man accused of Rex Coffey murder Rep. Rogers gets $3 million in Federal budget for I-66 IN BUSINESS: Eddie Darnell new AIG insurance agent Card of Thanks: from Vaughn Burton family members Head-on crash two miles north on KY 55 claims life View even more articles in topic News |
 
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