They're doing it again

The people of GroveAtopia are doing good deeds again.

This time they are planting a little park downtown with flowers and trees and shrubs and vegetables and other things that will make the park look better.   

About 30 or so people answered the call and descended upon the embattled little park on the corner of 7th and Main St., just across the street from The Bookmine, next to the bike shop and across from the bakery, for the sole purpose of making it look pretty.   

They had shovels, and gloves and wheelbarrows and dirt.  There were baked goods.  There was a canopy.  

And there was a banner.  The banner said Cottage Grove Garden Club because this was their show.

Beyond the garden workers, a peek into the park bathrooms revealed a surprise.   

Artists!   

They were painting little decorative pictures along the bathroom walls, helping to convert the bathroom's current prison-like decor to something nicer to look at.  

Now you might wonder how GroveAtopia ended up with a weedy little park downtown.  Here is how it happened.

This little patch of land used to be planted by people who cared.  They planted whatever they wanted, and they took care of it with a simple hose.   There was grass and there were fruit trees and  flowers and there was a trellis.  There was a miniature covered bridge that the little kids used to love to play on.  There was a picnic table and there were a few benches.  

People loved that park.  It was GroveAtopia's People's Park.  We called it Opal Park, after our local fairy Opal Whiteley.  She's the one in the park's mural.

But it turned out the park had an owner, and some people didn't like the park's homegrown look, so the owner gave the park to local businesses and they got some money and got someone to design the park and had it redesigned and renamed.  There were tears shed and bitterness felt by those who had cared for the old park, but those concerns were brushed aside and the new park was built.

But they forgot to make a plan to make sure plants were planted.  

So when the Lovely Season came and GroveAtopia was abloom, poor little Opal Park was barren and weedy.   

But today, it was the Cottage Grove Garden Club that came to the rescue.  In one day, they and those who helped them, transformed the barren hardscape into a fully planted garden.  

People from the old park and people from the new park worked side-by-side in an afternoon of truce-making and understanding.  

And you know what?  It turns out that no matter what their differences, if people work together to do good deeds, good things happen.

Not just in GroveAtopia.