It’s not going to happen this year or next, and it may not ever take place. But on a table in the office of Rob Gunther, Park Forest’s recreation and parks director, is a mind-boggling concept sketch of what the village’s Somonauk Park could become.
The draft was put together by the Land Resource Management Group, a company that uses an area’s natural resources to help craft sustainable projects.
The new vision for the site includes a footprint for a toddler park, and using natural substances to create rope bridges, climbing stumps and tunnels. The park also would include walking and jogging trails, a small lagoon with a fishing pier, a disc golf course with nine “holes,” an expanded parking lot, two separate pavilions for group gatherings, and a spot for a basketball court.
Reconstruction of the park, bounded by Shabbona Drive, and Somonauk and Sangamon streets, could begin as soon as grant money from the state’s Open Space Lands Acquisition & Development program becomes available.
Don’t hold your breath, folks.
Shortly after taking office in January, new Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner froze $26 million in grants for 75 parks and recreation projects in the state, including construction projects underway. There’s that big $1.6 billion hole in the state budget that needs to be addressed, says the Gov. For the time being, and there is no telling how long “time being” will be, it looks as if the Somonauk Park plan will remain an imposing four-color vision on Gunther’s desk.
Gunther said the concept, which cost slightly more than $18,000 to design, is an attempt to refashion the village’s parks to better serve the needs of its citizens.
When Park Forest was in its infancy, six decades ago, all you needed to make a park was a set of swings and a teeter-totter. That was then. Gunther’s department takes care of 17 village parks, including a dog park, a skateboard park and the Rail Fan Park near the Matteson Metra Electric District train station.
If there is a time when Somonauk Park can be redeveloped, it could signal the start of a major renovation to both Central Park and the Village Green, the downtown area in which the village’s summer concert series is held.
More Top Picks Best Automatic Pot Stirrers
But right now there is no money, so don’t hold your breath.
“I’ve got snorkel gear,” Gunther said. “I can wait.”
Eighty!
There was a time when you called anyone an octogenarian, it was for someone much older than yourself. Not anymore.
People start giving you advice when you reach the age of 80, most of it sounding as if it were a pat on the head for the old coot. They tell you 80 is the new 60, or is it 70? They tell you “you don’t look your age” or “you’ve got a lot of years ahead of you.” Trouble is, those who say that are all younger than you.
Last year, this scribbler needed to have a tetanus shot. The young nurse said the injection was good for 10 years. Thanks, I said. That should last me a lifetime.
Once, in conversation with a doctor, I said one of four things would finally get me. My immune system would fail or my cardiovascular system would go haywire, I would be hit by a truck or struck by a train.
“Don’t walk in the road or on the railroad tracks,” he said. Thanks, I said.
There was a small gathering two weekends ago and Daughter flew in from Colorado with two useless presents — a container of false teeth glue and balls that go on the bottom of a walker. Thanks a lot, kid. Now where is my will?
Jerry Shnay is a freelance journalist and can be reached at [email protected].