Memories are besmirched when our city's parks are allowed to disintegrate

A toss from the pitcher's mound that summer night set in motion a tragedy that shook Garland like few other things have in its history.

The ball struck the back of 11-year-old Ricky Oden's neck below his helmet while he was at bat. The Williams Elementary student died two days later.

Mention on Facebook the night that Ricky Oden was felled in 1956, and posts in reply blitz in at lightning speed. Like recollections about the JFK assassination, Garlandites of that era clearly remember where they were when it happened or when they learned of the occurrence. Shock waves all over.

It was the first on-field death in U.S. Little League history. The park where it occurred, then known as Cole Park for developer M.C. Cole, was renamed Rick Oden Park shortly thereafter and now occupies 31 acres.

Only 11 years old, this Garland lad didn't live to graduate from high school or see adulthood. Rick Oden Park in Garland is named for him.

Today, that city park is in miserable shape; thanks to recent rains and being in a floodplain the potholes in its roads and parking lots are like bombed-out craters in Vietnam during the war there more than 40 years ago.

Potholes and poor park-road and parking lot conditions are not honoring to the memory Rick Oden.

The memory of this winsome boy that gave his all at batter's plate when his team was down, who did not live to see adulthood because of a sports accident, deserves to be honored and respected far more than the condition of the park today reflects.

I was reminded of this the other day when Kay and I decided to check out Rick Oden Park at dusk on a weekday. The poor condition of the park had been mentioned in a political forum we attended.

The condition of the park made us feel sad, though I had little time to think about it since I was busy in my car dodging those awful potholes that jarred every tooth in my head and worrying about potential damage to my new set of tires! An unaware person driving through after dark could sustain real damage to a vehicle.

The Rick Oden park memorializes an 11-year-old Garland elementary student who died after his neck was hit with a baseball in a game in 1956. 

Scattered across the central and southern sections of Garland are other parks that hold great meaning for our community. They tell the story of bygone eras of new settlers to this area and of "separate but equal" Tom Crow racism in our community before the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Many people today probably don't remember or could care less about these once-treasured parks with deep meaning. Except for the long-termers, I wonder how many know the true story of Rick Oden? On Facebook you can find people who state in posts that they played baseball there for years but never knew who Rick Oden was or why the park bore his name. How many know the story of the Williams family of Central Park? Or Lou Huff and Lou Huff Park?

In fact, about a year ago, the city's Heritage Crossing asked Kay to assist in finding a picture of Lou (Lula) Huff, the African-American citizen (1889-1956) for whom the park was named in about 1950. That portrait once hung proudly in the foyer of the park's small recreation center. Lou Huff is buried in Lincoln Memorial Park in Dallas.

Like too many other treasures in this community, the picture of Lou Huff, to the knowledge of the leaders among Garland's black citizens, is still missing. Some now believe the picture was given to family members as the Lou Huff Recreation Center was closing its doors in late 2002. Today, the rec center is a warehouse for the Garland Parks Department. It should be a museum of African-American culture in Garland. It is worthy of being on the National Register of Historic Places.

And I wonder how many realize that Garland has no park or any part of a park dedicated to the honor or memory of any Latinos, who today comprise nearly 39% of our city's population, nor to any Asians, who now comprise 10.4% of our population. (The Anglo population is nearly 33% and the black population 13.5%.)

The vast majority of Garland parks are named for whites, with only two of Garland's parks named for blacks.

Something is definitely wrong with these numbers!

Parks in the central and southern sectors of the city have not been kept up like they should have been. No wonder these parks stir reports and rumors of crime and more in them.

Neighbors who live near Central Park, situated on land once farmed by the original settlers—the Williams family—after it was the George Washington "Wash" Routh home place beginning in about 1850 on Duck Creek—are concerned about the proposed skate and dog parks in Central Park. But they also worry about current crime there and the way they say West Avenue G running behind their houses is constantly littered with hypodermic needles (for illegal drug uses) but also used condoms and other evidences of misuse of the once-magnificent, family-friendly city park.

Lou Huff Park is another of those utter embarrassments. At a recent luncheon at our home for African-American leaders, Garland City Councilman B.J. Williams expressed shock and disbelief at the description offered of Lou Huff Park, once one of the key epicenters of African-American life in Garland, as nothing but a warehouse. (On the Parks Department website, the park is generally referred to merely as "Huff" Park, diluting the origin of its name still more.) It has a tennis court and softball fields.

Today, the Lou Huff Recreation Center and its expansion serve as storage facilities for Garland's Parks Department. The recreation facility is history. Members of Garland' black community wistfully recall the time when this center was their "everything", a hub around which everything revolved.

Instead of a city warehouse, the Lou Huff Park facilities would make a great museum of Garland's African-American history.

The two small, old swimming pools at Lou Huff built for "coloreds only" lie buried like caskets in the ground. The old, large "whites only" swimming poor at Central Park suffered the same fate. At least we know precisely where it is: under the outline of the sandy volleyball courts. I hope someday someone in Garland's African-American community can clearly pinpoint to me the exact location of the two original small swimming pools in Lou Huff Park and secure a Texas historical marker for them.

And Central Park? I've covered that embarrassment in many blogs over the past year. It needs a total remake, starting with a master plan—and not just a bunch of knee-jerk, hit-and-miss ideas—that neighbors, other citizens, city staff, and city council can all agree on. It doesn't even treat the memory of our white settlers any better.

Garland has an amazing way of burying the history it wants to try and somehow forget—such as the days of segregation, Jim Crow laws, and the city's burgeoning Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. And it refuses to honor our Latino citizens who have given so much to help build this city.

I wish the Williams family ultimately would donate to the city its historic home place situated next to the park, to be used as a "Farmstead" heritage model like the City of Plano has. But given the current state of Garland's parks, I wouldn't blame the family for answering with a resounding "NO".

The Williams family home place near Garland's Central Park. Funeral cars are parked out front in this photo of bygone times. The Williams family owned and operated the funeral home. Photo from Pioneers of Dallas County.

Our treasured parks deserve better than this! Those who made these parks possible deserve better than this. Our current citizens who want and need to use their parks fully deserve better than this.

And our Hispanic and Asian populations deserve to have at least one park each named for one of their own.

The Garland Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Arts Department says it has plans to take up the asphalt and replace it with concrete at the Rick Oden Park in 2019 and to fix at least one road in Central Park in 2020. Roads and parking lots in Lou Huff Park are not on the calendar.

When I am elected Mayor of Garland, I will work to see that these important parks—and others as well—are respected and restored to their original beauty and importance to our city.

I will also work to see that the naming of our parks begins to reflect the true ethnic mix of our community today.

For starters, perhaps we need to find a way to fund our own Garland Parks security department or some other means to keep all of our parks safe. A division of our Garland Police Department? A well-organized Citizens-on-Patrol operation? A special section in our Marshall's Office? Each option and others ought to be considered.

I invite our citizens to weigh in with ideas on how we might start by making our troubled parks safer for ALL our citizens! Email me with your ideas at louismooreformayorofgarland@yahoo.com.

The town swimming hole when Duck Creek was dammed up near the Williams property in bygone times. Garland's Central Park is in this area now.  Photo from Garland Landmark Society.

A tale of two sections of Highway 66 through Rowlett and Garland: one flourishes, the other lags

Visitors entering Garland from Highway 66 as they exit Rowlett are greeted with this massive storage facility under construction on the left side of the road, in contrast to the thriving retail district they find in entering Rowlett from the west.

For a long time I've wanted to have this conversation with the former mayor of Rowlett, Todd Gottel, about the dramatic contrast between Highway 66 on the Rowlett side versus on the Garland side of the two cities' boundary.

Recently while out campaigning for Mayor of Garland I had the opportunity on several occasions to talk with Rowlett's gregarious, effective, and talented former Mayor Gottel, now a Republican candidate for Dallas County Judge, about the matter. I also talked with Gottel's successor, Mayor Tammy Dana-Bashian, about it, too.

My question was very simple: What has Rowlett done right—or Garland done wrong—so that the Rowlett stretch of Highway 66 running through that city is bustling with new energy, new businesses and a vast array of eateries and exciting places to go, while the Garland portion of Highway 66 from the city limits to First Street is a vastly underutilized area. 

It contains one large, beautiful church, several small churches, a small Buddhist temple, two hat manufacturing companies, some city buildings, and the like—certainly real contributors to our city.

But where, in addition to these, is the retail? Other than several gas stations and a drive-in restaurant, why does a buzzing retail district elude Garland there yet crop up immediately on the other side of the city limits in Rowlett? 

A combination Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins eatery and other thriving small businesses are part of Rowlett's entry point as one approaches the neighboring city from Garland on Highway 66.

To me and other Garland citizens the contrast is like daylight and darkness. Clearly the two cities have approached Highway 66 differently.

Mayor Dana-Bashian tried to be kind to Garland when she explained that Highway 66 is "a major thoroughfare" through Rowlett, which may be another reason that strip has done so incredibly well.

But Highway 66 also is a major thoroughfare through Garland!

Adding insult to injury, Rowlett is in the midst of a major $2-million spruce-up of the medians of the six-lane divided highway. When that project is soon complete, the contrast between the two cities along Highway 66 will be even more dramatic.

Landscaped medians are planned for Highway 66 as one departs Rowlett for Garland.

I want our city to be the showcase for the Metroplex. It can't be when we face situations like this one. And we have similar contrasts like this at our borders all over town.

Why is this happening?

Gottel's answers were both shocking and vexing:

1. The $2-million landscaping project in its medians is being paid for with a $2-million grant from the Texas Department of Transportation, often called only TxDOT.

So, why didn't Garland get a grant like this? Same highway. Same state. Same state agency. Just a city-limits sign dividing the two towns. The answer surprised me. It will surprise many Garlandites, too. A citizen organization engaged in a conversation with TxDOT that eventually led to the $2-million grant. Rowlett City Council did not initiate the grant but quickly embraced it once it smelled the money.

Given Garland's penchant for minimizing genuine citizen involvement, I wonder what city leaders would have done if such a grant had been proposed from some organization or individual outside the initiative of our power elite. As I have said many times in many places in many ways, Garland needs to empower our citizens—not discourage them—to go after citizen-initiated possible resources any time they are available. Garland citizens leading the effort to build a new quality animal shelter here tell stories about being rebuffed when trying to inform our city leaders that outside money was available to help build the shelter. That story truly puzzles me!

One of the wealthiest persons Garland ever produced drops $2 million to $4 million checks all over worthy philanthropic causes in another region of this country, where this immensely wealthy family lives. Has someone ever suggested to this locally-grown, prosperous philanthropist that the hometown where the person's roots run deep ought to be on that list of worthy causes? I can quickly think of a half-dozen causes here that could use a check for $3 million or $4 million—starting with our downtown area. Our city needs all the help it can get from elsewhere because our city's needs are great and our citizens are already heavily burdened with high property and sales taxes now—and facing stiff competition from other nearby DFW cities. Despite our rugged sense of independence, we simply can't do it alone. We need help anywhere we can find it!

This RaceTrac station along Highway 66 near the entrance to Garland is a well-run business with friendly clerks. But other retail benefiting Garland could certainly be added in this vicinity.

 2. Gottel described the attraction of new and exciting businesses and eateries to Highway 66 through Rowlett as the result of a fairly easy, simple, and inexpensive plan.

He said Rowlett focused its resources on making the strip look attractive—kind of like a homeowner does when wanting to put his or her house up for sale. That's all. By insisting that businesses landscape, keep their landscaping looking nice including consistently laying mulch over bare earth, and everybody just working together to make their little places on Highway 66 look good, other businesses and restaurants from elsewhere want to join the parade. And joining the parade they have done—and are doing!

Even Garland's homegrown and locally owned bank, Texas Brand Bank at Miller and Shiloh, has gotten into the act in booming Rowlett, with a large sign on the southwest corner of the intersection of Highway 66 and the George Bush Freeway announcing that it is financing the new project there.

The former Rowlett mayor described something like a neighborhood that cleans up its litter, removes all blight, installs beautiful landscaping, and puts out the red carpet for all guests.

Gottel's words are still ringing in my ears: Easy. Simple. Inexpensive.

And to top it all off, a wheelbarrow full of free money from the State of Texas.

A city with a heart for its citizens couldn't ask for a better formula.

Not to mention the extra bump in sales tax revenues and property taxes the City of Rowlett is enjoying (and Garland is missing) with this neat little package of ideas on State Highway 66.

Just one more reason why I believe Garland needs new leadership with experienced creativity and know-how Moore, Hope for Garland promises!

Though the building looks substantial, it is one of two new storage facilities in the area that needs more retail that draws citizens to Highway 66 in Garland before the Rowlett city limits.