Titan Park

I hate riding through parts of South Philly.

The streets are narrow and the drivers are narrow-minded. This isn't true of all of them, of course, but I suspect that as a whole drivers in the South Philly neighborhoods don't care for bikers. It's just as well because bikers in the South Philly neighborhoods don't care for drivers. In fact I don't know if this is true either; however, when I'm down there I get tense. Because the streets are narrow, and the drivers have attitude.

I was hit by a cab, while harboring these very feelings in an attempt to bike mindfully. It was four a.m. in the morning, back in the first weekend of November. This isn't relevant, of course, but I'd like to insert it into my online history while I can. I didn't go to the hospital because I don't trust doctors. I couldn't bend my knee for a few days. I've gotten over it since. The knee does bother me from time to time, mostly when it is cold out, and when I'm feeling sorry for myself I blame myself for not getting professional help. This little digression is again not relevant to the story; In sharing with the manner from which I was dismounted from my bicycle, I'm going to toss this sentiment aside and move forward.

I hate riding through parts of South Philly, so when I'm down there I try to vary my route. Earlier this week I was riding on a narrow side street, just off of second or front or whatever runs slightly west and under the elevated Interstate, and several blocks south of Federal. It was that kind of side street that you can never possibly wander into again, because there are so many of them that to find the one you've taken before is to be struck in a different place by the same bolt of lightning.

Along this side street was, eventually, a small block of concrete space. The concrete space was smaller than a city block and probably even too small to be called a lot. Adults could probably build a house on it if they wanted too. Kids could, in no feasible way, play full-court basketball on it, or even a respectable game of half-court. It was that small.

A sign declared this itty, bitty space, with a few benches and some ugly concrete centerpiece, to be called, "Titan Park." I thought the name overextended the aesthetic boundaries of the park a little.

That same sign was a reminder to, "Keep Titan Park Green."

I'll admit there was not a piece of trash anywhere within the limited perimeter of Titan Park that I could see. But, if the message of this sign intended for recipients to help maintain Titan Park's vegetation, those responsible for the placard were too late: all of the greenery had been concreted over some decades ago.

Titan Park is, in this respect, a monument to bureaucracy.

Perhaps I simply misinterpreted what I was able to absorb in my quick drive by. When I'm riding through South Philly, I try to ride out as soon as possible.