Posted on 04/11/2020 6:15:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
My 12-year-old daughter was playing basketball alone at the court, when a city truck drove over to her. City workers told me that they were taking down the rim to keep groups from gathering.
My family lives on a small mountain in a suburb of Little Rock, Arkansas, and behind our home is a city green space with a small basketball court and walking trail. Throughout our city are several of these basketball courts and trails.
The court by our house is fairly ignored. Because it is at the base of a hill, it floods during rainstorms, so my husband took it upon himself to dig a drainage canal to divert the water off the court into the creek that runs beside it.
We also called the city last year and asked them to put a net on the rim because there was none. They said that as time and money allowed they would get to it, so we bought one and put it on the rim ourselves.
Every two weeks or so, my husband goes down to the basketball court and blows it off with a backpack blower to keep the court clear of debris. We feel like the court is almost an extension of our backyard, so we try to treat it well.
On April 6, my 12-year-old daughter was playing basketball alone at the court, as she often does, when a city truck drove over to her. She quickly came home to get me. I headed down to the court to talk to the city workers, who told me that they were taking down the basketball rim to keep groups from gathering.
I was really conflicted by this news. On the one hand, I am really glad that our city is still employing the folks who work for the Parks and Recreation Department. On the other hand, this basketball court is seldom used by anyone besides my three children and is never used by a crowd. It is a public court that my tax dollars pay for.
I called the mayor to discuss it with him, and he said he considered basketball courts closed because all playground equipment in city parks had been roped off about a week and a half before. It was brought to his attention that children were still playing on basketball courts, so he had the rims removed.
On a local city forum, community members have been upset that children are outside during school hours. Our local schools have been closed for several weeks now, and they will not open again until next school year.
The children who attend public schools have assignments and meetings during school hours, so some people do not understand why kids would be outside before three o’clock. They are asking for a curfew during public school hours and in the evening. Thankfully, the mayor is resisting the curfew, but the basketball court is not as lucky.
My children are homeschooled. My daughter prefers to wake up before anyone else and do about half of her school work before 8 a.m. when the house is quiet. Because of this, she is finished with her work before lunchtime.
It would be wonderful if after five hours of diligently working on school, I could allow her to go play some basketball at a court that I can see from our window and that my tax dollars pay for, but this liberty has been stripped away.
Our suburb is not under a stay-at-home order, but many businesses have been mandated to close such as gyms and hair salons. Public places such as Pinnacle Mountain State Park in Little Rock and libraries are closed. However, because we are not under a stay-at-home mandate, the decision to keep a business open often is at the discretion of the local business.
For instance, my dentist will not do a routine teeth cleaning and many doctors have postponed important surgeries, but the local abortion facility is happy to continue murdering babies. Meanwhile, our local hospital has laid off workers because they have no patients.
Arkansas is a state with a population of 3.014 million people. At the time I am writing, 21 people in my state have died and there are 841 active Covid-19 cases, which is less than 0.028 percent of the population. The total number of Covid-19 patients who are currently hospitalized is 73 in Arkansas, with 31 patients on ventilators out of the 750 total in the state.
My daughter’s response was, “Well, they can take away my library, and they can take away my basketball goal, but they can’t take away my piano.”
You would like to think that the youth of America are learning some hard lessons not taught in K-12 schools here. Or maybe too many are far gone that they expect to go along with whatever the government says.
The first mistake these folks made was in putting time and energy into a public park they don’t own. I suspect this woman only bothered to take the time to write this article because she was particularly disappointed at what happened to “their” playground.
That’s a fear of mine also.
Youth are learning what socialism and excessive government control is all about, and it’s ugly!
G*ddamn petty tyrants.
You can thank the ambulance chasing lawyers to force our current “norm” for years and years.
My subdivision closed the playground days/weeks ago, because the managing company hired by the HOA could not disinfect the whole compound daily.
It is not as if they don’t want children to play outdoor during the lock down, they just couldn’t afford the law suits awaiting them.
Welcome to slavery.
“Well, they can take away my library, and they can take away my basketball goal, but they can’t take away my piano.”
**********************************
Don’t be so sure young lady.
OR -- whatever happened to the old practice of mounting a hoop on the garage roof?
The Democrats want the Deep South back in line. It is going to get really ugly fast.
A good lesson in the fact that tyranny does not come only from the government but also from the hearts of petty tyrants everywhere.
There are some lessons for kids to be learned here, both good and not so good. The good that children can learn from this is that Government is not your friend. It is a large man with a bad attitude that can and will take everything from you and generally ruin your day.
The not so good lesson is that Trump is the face of Government. That’s unfortunate because he doesn’t deserve the bad rep that Government has earned.
Little Rock has a problem. Everywhere there is a basketball hoop, there is a gathering of “youts”.
It would be pretty difficult for the city to selectively take down the hoops, only in the neighborhoods where this is a problem.
This is my town the author lives in, Maumelle, Arkansas.
It’s gotten past stupid around here.
POWER HUNGRY NAZIS!!
Please tell me what is wrong with keeping up the area you live in, whether it be public space or your own? I look after the boulevard in front of my home, including clearing snow if and when it occurs. I pick up the leaves too.
There is a reason some places are cleaner than others, that reason being that the residents care about where they live and like to keep it tidy and functional. Look at your typical ghetto vs pretty much any middle class area. In one place the folks just toss their trash wherever, in the other people clean up after themselves and others.
I'm not sure why looking after something his kids use is a bad thing, no matter who owns it. That the city took it down is a sad thing, but the article sounds more like a pragmatic lament than a major whine fest.
I never heard of Malloy and Reed doing these things....
Malloy and Reed of Adam-12 on Laugh-In
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uopGooFc3yc
the hall monitors are in charge
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.