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.