All Hands On Deck For Park Dedication
Watching paint dry isn’t too exciting.
But watching concrete set Saturday had its moments.
About 100 kids who live in the MeadowWood neighborhood at Liberty Lake watched the gray soup solidify for about 30 minutes. Why? Because when everything was just right, they got to put their open palms in the muck and leave a paw print for posterity.
It was the dedication ceremony for Five Fingers Park. The Greenstone Corporation, MeadowWood developer, built the one-acre park and gave it to the neighborhood. A homeowner’s association will now maintain it, but it’s open to everyone.
Neighborhood kids would feel a greater sense of ownership if they were allowed to be a part of the park’s creation, organizers thought.
“You put your mark on things that are really important to you,” Jim Frank of Greenstone told the assembled parents and kids at the start. “(This park) is yours to make better, and it’s yours to keep clean.”
After the official stuff came the fun. The cement truck started churning, and kids formed two lines flanking a small rut that workers slowly filled with concrete.
One wheelbarrow at a time.
Kids watched as each section was poured, wetted down, then smoothed over. Then watched it turn from liquid slime to, well, gelatin-like slime.
The young spectators sat on their knees, leaning as far out over the wet concrete as they could without face-planting into it.
Mark Terrell, the landscape architect who came up with the idea for Five Finger Park, watched the whole thing in amazement. “They’re unbelievably patient,” he said. After a half-hour, though, the kids got squirmy. Fortunately, it was time to get dirty.
The first to give it a go was Brian Johnson. The 12-year-old stamped his hands into the muck, then ran to a nearby bucket to wash off. “We poured concrete last night,” the boy said with pride. “I got to do it then, too.”
Since the concrete was poured one section at a time, that’s the way it dried. Kids had to wait until their section was ready, even though others were already wrist-deep in concrete.
The depth of the handprints was like a frustration gauge. Youngsters who went first made light indentations in the concrete. By the time kids at the end had their turn, they were practically digging their way to China.
One little guy wanted seconds. Brett Balgoh, 4, was returning from washing his hands after making his mark. “Can I put my hands in again? I wanna put my name in…” the blond boy started. His mom, Cheri, tried to stop him, but it was too late. Brett dove in.
“Ooooh, Brett!” Mom cried.
That was just one of the challenges for adults. The toughest thing was dodging all the tykes running around, hands outstretched before them like Frankenstein’s monster, covered in hardening concrete.
After everyone washed up, cookies and sodas were on hand. Everyone was squinting in the sun and smiling.
Elmer Schniedmiller, whose family farmed the MeadowWood land years ago, thought it was a success.
“It was a good idea,” Schniedmiller said.
And no one ended up wearing concrete galoshes.
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