Audubon Park

Photo by Mike Benna on Unsplash

I grew up in New Orleans, in a section of town called Uptown. We lived two blocks from Audubon Park, an expansive park with a bike and jogging trail around the perimeter, a golf course, and a central lagoon filled with fish, turtles, ducks, and geese. The oak trees lining the pathways were some of the oldest in the city, two or three hundred years old.

I filled many lazy summer days with my childhood friend, Celeste; feeding the ducks and geese and exploring the park. We’d visit the play areas with the usual swings, slides, and little merry-go-rounds. Our moms took us in strollers as infants and toddlers, and as we got older, we were allowed to go by ourselves.

What I remember best was feeding the ducks and geese. We’d save the ends of bread loaves, and they would crowd around us, begging for more, always more. The geese displayed their aggression by hissing and spitting when we ventured too close, yet they wasted no time in snatching the bread from our hands. They would squawk at the ducks until they had their fill and then the ducks would approach us for whatever was left over. Both birds were cute in the way they would shake their back ends, their tails once they had food in their mouths. The ducks would waddle off, quacking, and the geese tended to raise their necks high and saunter off until the next person fed them.

A small island floated in the middle of the lagoon; the ducks and geese slept there at night. There was no way to reach it, other than to swim or wade over, but our moms wouldn’t let us. The lagoon wasn’t deep, maybe 3 feet at most, but the water wasn’t very clean. We often wondered what was on that little island. My imagination always ran wild, thinking about what we might find if we were brave enough to cross over. While we just wanted to explore the island, and not being able to get there just made us want to find a way to the island. We thought how fun it would be if we found something of value, jewelry, or a box of money tucked away.

When I was about ten, the chance to explore the island arrived when they drained the lagoon for cleaning. Celeste and I took full advantage of the opportunity. The island was the size of a city lot, overgrown with a couple of oak trees. We had to watch where we stepped, as the tree roots ran all over the place. There was no path, and a few angry ducks and geese honked and quacked at us because we almost walked into nests full of eggs. We had fun poking around, but the magic I had thought was there in childhood was gone. I think we had built up in our minds what this island would be like and were very disappointed when reality didn’t live up to our imagination. When you’re little, you always think of magical places or things that seem not real and as you get older, you realize those places are no longer what you dreamed about when you were younger.

Audubon Park’s golf course was covered with what we called pricker grass, because walking on it barefoot hurt, as if the grass had little thorns in it. As much as I loved being barefooted, I didn’t like the golf course because of the grass. We used to play in the sand traps in the golf course, much to the ire of golf players. I recall one time we filled a small bucket with water to pour on the sand. We were in the middle of making some sort of sandcastle when a golfer walked up to us and yelled that we had no business messing up the golf course. He made enough of a stink about calling our parents and telling the club owner that we ran off, scared that we were in big trouble.

When I was around six or seven, we had a cocker spaniel named Gumbo. My dad often took the dog walking in the park and once I learned how to ride a bike, I’d tag along. One Sunday morning, my dad took Gumbo for a walk before church.

Gumbo always tried to chase the ducks, geese, and squirrels, and my dad could control him on the leash. That Sunday, however, Gumbo had other plans. Mom and I waited in our church clothes for them to come home so we could leave. She kept looking at the clock, fretting that we were going to be late for church.

Dad walked into the house soaking wet, dirty lagoon water dripping on the Oriental rugs, with a drenched dog behind him. Gumbo had chased the ducks into the lagoon and dragged Dad with him. Mom became annoyed about the dirty water on the rugs and the fact that Dad needed to dry off and change, which would make us late for church. I thought the whole thing was funny because I could picture Gumbo chasing the geese with Dad trying to control him. Gumbo must have had a blast swimming in the lagoon.

Celeste and I were about eight or nine when we received roller skates for our birthdays. We spent a couple of weekends skating up and down our street, getting used to them (and to the many scrapes on our knees from falling), before we were allowed to venture over to the park. Our moms would follow from a respectable distance as we gripped hands and skated down the paved part of the road that ran around the park. We stuck close to the edge of the road at first in case we fell, but as we improved, we would venture out to the middle of the road. Of course, that’s where all the faster joggers and bikers were and learning to avoid them added another layer of little girl giggles as we skated.

In the years since, the park has changed little. The play areas now have that added layer of padding and the lighting has improved at night. The road that winds around the park gets repaved every so often. The island is still in the middle of the lagoon, still full of ducks and geese. The water is cleaner from when I was a child. Every time I’m in town visiting, I try to make a trip to Audubon Park. It has become one of those nostalgia stops for me as I’m eating my way through the city. I am glad I have these memories of an idyllic place.

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This was published in Nifty Lit late last year.