No more than fifteen seconds after I meet him, Ross is laying out a soft-spoken tirade about oak trees. Ross is older, be-flanneled, with long, gray hair tied in a ponytail. He also looks so much like John Denver that he may very well be some parallel universe's John Denver that put down his guitar one day and said “You know what, to hell with this guitar nonsense. I’m gonna be all about trees from now on,” and then spent a lot of times out in the woods and didn’t die.
Ross talks slowly (but without pausing) about the oak trees that have been around for 10,000 years and about the species of birds that could certainly find other feeding spots than here and that the overall response to the removal of the foreign plant species is less than informed. Here he stops for a moment, looks at me over his sunglasses and says in a low, conspiratorial tone that “this place is not without its controversies.”
Saturday Morning
Chicago Cares
Jackson Park Project
Jackson Park
Chicago, IL
Time: 10:00am
Cost: Putting up with a completely hidden controversy, Having a heart of solid f’n gold, Free
I’d feel worse about catching a bus in front of my office building on a Saturday morning but for two things. First, I’m heading off to do some volunteer work in Jackson Park today, and with this year’s crappy excuse for a summer behind us, it will be nice to be around some nature before winter comes and all I want to do is punch nature in the face for seven months. The second reason I can't be too mad is that Chicago smells like chocolate today.
That chocolate smell is without a doubt one of the best features of Chicago. It’s caused by what is technically pollution from the cocoa bean processing plant at the nearby Blommer Chocolate Factory. But pollution that makes the entire downtown area smell like a candy shop has to be one of the more awesome pollutions around, and the effect goes a long way towards making cold fall mornings slightly more bearable.
I finally catch my bus and head south to the Museum of Science and Industry, behind which is situated the 500 acres that make up Jackson Park. Arguably, the park’s biggest claim to fame is that it hosted the 1893 World’s Fair. Arguably, the 1893 World’s Fair's biggest claim to fame is the involvement of serial killer H.H. Holmes. Holmes’ exploits at the World’s Fair, which involved setting up a hotel that doubled as a torture center and murdertorium, are described in the book Devil in the White City, a copy of which is issued upon arrival to anyone who moves to Chicago. I still haven’t read mine.
Chicago Cares has set me up with this volunteer date, referring to it as a Just For Starters opportunity in their brief, bright green, online orientation. That orientation promises me that a Just For Starters opportunity will acclimatize me to the way Chicago Cares works, start me off with a fairly easy task and allow me to meet other great volunteers. This seems like a pretty great deal because if I ever run of out things to discuss with these other great volunteers I am bound to meet, why, we can just discuss our awesome selflessness and can-do volunteer spirit.
This is how I picture it:
Me: “You’re an awesome, selfless person, Volunteer-mate.”
Them: “Well, that’s great of you to say, kind soul. Almost as great as your love for humanity must be.”
Me: “Well, I’d like to volunteer a thank you, peaceful warrior, and take a moment to stand up for what I believe in: You’re neat!”
And on and on we’ll go, forging friendships founded on just how much better we are than anyone else, ever.
I get to the Jackson Park meeting spot in a parking lot next to Clarence Darrow Bridge where I find Ross, who is part of an effort to preserve the parks oak population, which has been in the area for some 10,000 years. It turns out that during the aforementioned World’s Fair, organizers introduced several species of foreign plant life to the park, including buckthorn and mulberry. These particular species of plants out-compete native plants for nutrients, light and moisture, and attract pests, so today we’ll be removing them so that the oak can survive.
It’s not long after Ross tells me to watch out for all the controversy lying everywhere that I meet Doug, who walks up during Ross's monologue, and I delve into one of my social weaknesses: Small talk. I am miserable at small talk. I get involved in polite conversations about general events, or the weather, or general weather events, and I’m done for. To be honest, it's usually when I try to say something clever. Take for example the following snippet of conversation between Doug and I:
Doug: “Are you going to watch the marathon tomorrow?”
Me: “Oh, actually my apartment is between two of the streets on the route, so I’ll be able to see it from my window, depending on how early I get up.”
Doug: “That’s cool. They’re starting pretty early, so you’ll have to get up pretty early to see those really fast runners, like the Kenyans. They usually finish pretty quick.”
Here I would love to say that, yes, the Kenyans do run very quickly and I’d be willing to bet that if I saw a Kenyan running up one street to east of my apartment, I’d have just enough time to turn my head before I saw the selfsame Kenyan running down the street to the west of my apartment. Then we’d share a raucous bit of laughter and sip our tea, now fast friends. It’s not the wittiest thing ever, but I’d like this guy to have some idea of the sort of comic genius he’s dealing with sooner rather than later.
Here’s what I say instead:
Me: “Yeah, they fast so it’ll be like, I look over and then I have to fast look back and they’re all – zoom by, you know? Heh. Kenyans are – [trail off and look at the ground].”
So, instead of Doug thinking that I possess a special brand of wit, Doug is now thinking that I possess a special brand of helmet to keep me from hurting myself. And before I can convince him otherwise, Chicago Cares Team Leader Mary arrives and starts telling us about the project. Then the other volunteers arrive. And then we head out into the woods.
And now you’d better strap yourselves in, folks, because I believe it’s time that I tell you all about the controversy plaguing Jackson Park. You think that a serial killer setting up a kill factory during the World’s Fair is something? Well I invite you to think the fuck again. There’s a war being fought right under your very noses, Chicago, and the winner of that war will step up to the blank canvas of the future with their brush of vigilance dipped in the murky paint of fate and create a vibrant, colorful picture entitled “Wait... What about birds? Mulberry? Oh, I don't have time for this.”
Countdown to apathy!
3 – 2 – 1…
The invasive species of plants that need to be removed so that the 10,000 year-old Oak trees can continue on for another 10,000 years include the buckthorn and the mulberry, which provide needed nutrition for some of the 200 species of birds that frequent the Jackson Park area. Moreover, during the spring months, those invasive special are purportedly critical for birds returning from migrations that have taken them as far as Argentina. So, in order to remove these species some theorize that the a portion of the bird population will no longer have a home in Jackson Park.
So, there’s the controversy. Preserving trees at the expense of birds, or cash in your birds for some trees.
I have to tell you, I come down on the side of the oak, honestly, and not just because Ross made his case to everyone and no one in particular all day long. But the first point is that the birds aren’t going to die without these particular plants, they’ll just go somewhere else. The main proponents for the birds aren't scientists or conservationists, they're birdwatchers who frequent Jackson Park. But the plants are killing the oaks, there seems to be little doubt of that. It just seems to me that preserving the native Oaks at the expense of foreign plant species brought in to provide a nice backdrop for a World’s Fair that ended up providing a nice backdrop for horrific serial killings is just fine. Beyond that, its generally a slippery slope when you get into man’s involvement in nature and the resulting ramifications.
Take for example one of the species that the buckthorn and mulberry keep around, the European Starling. The European Starling was one of the birds introduced to America by New York drug manufacturer Eugene Schieffelin who, with the Acclimation Society of North America, attempted to introduce into North America every single bird ever mentioned in a Shakespeare text. So, based on a single brief mention in Henry IV, 60 European Starlings (now referred to as the Common Starling, just to provide some foreshadowing, here) were released in Central Park, and have since undergone such a population boom in Northern America that the 200 million of them currently threaten numerous birds (like a species of Bluebird native to Jackson Park) with overpopulation and parasites. If there’s a catch-all rule here, trying to keep things the way they were before we all screwed it up to make it look pretty or because Shakespeare said so seems to be the best idea.
But my evidence is anecdotal at best, wikipedian at worst.
Why am I wasting your precious time talking about birds and trees in a blog about meeting people? Well, because I didn’t really meet anyone this time around. Not really. I met Ross (and way to go me, for real) and Doug, as well as Anna, Melissa, other Andy, Jeff, and Team Leader Mary. But the nature of our work, cutting down trees and putting them in piles, kept us all separate and moving and only conversing enough to say ‘Excuse me’ or ‘I’ll take that’ or ‘Sorry I hit you in the face with buckthorn.’ We didn’t have a chance to get to know one another, much less tell each other what generous heart-forces we were. And at the end of the day people were tired and dirty and just wanted to go home after a few muttered goodbyes.
On our way back to the Darrow Bridge parking lot, I did manage to have a decent chat with Doug that was mostly comprised of small talk. It went fine, and while I don’t think I completely exonerated myself, I don’t think he’ll worry about me drinking a bottle of Windex ("it looked blue and fun, but it tasted like nuh-uh!"). Plus I caught a ride back to my part of town with Team Leader Mary, during which we talked about the weather and public transportation and the Olympics (or Nolympics as I do not call them) and also Devil in the White City; which are the topics that all Chicago residents must talk about. But we also had a great conversation about other volunteering opportunities, we both marveled at Ross and she shared with me several stories about the volunteers being yelled at by packs of birdwatchers. I wholeheartedly believe that I would pay good money to see that hippie fight go down.
I got an email from Chicago Cares this morning with a listing of projects happening over the next few weeks, and I’ll definitely do something else, but from now on it will honestly be more for the experience than something interesting to put in a blog (though if I meet another Ross, or see birdwatchers yelling at anyone, or any nature of hippie melee, you’ll be the first to know).
And it has occurred to me that there’s every chance I’ll run into one of the Jackson Park Project folks at one of those future projects, and if so we’ll definitely be able to discuss oak trees and buckthorn and Ross and whether honeysuckle is truly invasive and even Devil in the White City. And all of that is before we take the time to tell each other what great people we are and then remind each other that the world needs peaceful warriors like us now more than ever.
Totals:
Places Visited: 3
People Met: 16
Heart Lights (turned on): 7
Murdertoreums Seen in Jackson Park: 0
Hippie Fights Seen in Jackson Park: 0
Birds Seen in Jackson Park: 1
Female Condoms Seen in Jackson Park: 1
Oak Saplings Saved From High Traffic Areas: 4
Mentions of Devil in the White City: 8
Times Bob Denver confused with John Denver: 1
Parallel Universe John Denvers (missing): 1
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