Empty Fields

Back in the early-to-mid 1980s, I lived in an apartment complex here in Gainesville, situated on the edge of a large field (formerly the site of an airfield). The reason I had moved out here away from the more central part of the city was largely due to the fact that it was quieter, with less traffic. And it was closer to my workplace, which happened to be within walking distance (across this field). Nowadays, though, this is one of the most congested areas in Gainesville, and for various reasons. I think there are some people in the world who think that an open field is a waste of space. Buildings and parking lots should be there, in their view, for the space to have utility. But in my experience with that field, people at-large came up with many uses for it. Kids played soccer there. Golfers used it as a practice driving range. Some people set up a small obstacle course in a corner of the field to ride bicycles and ATV’s (now this is something that I’m strongly against, ATV’s being too dangerous). On weekends, some model plane enthusiasts flew their planes there. For a while, on Sunday mornings, there were hot air balloon rides offered to the public. From time to time, the field was used for special events, such as the circus I went to one time. People brought their dogs out and let them run around a little. Many sandlot games in football and softball were played there. Some nights I would walk to the center of the field and just stand there, thinking or gazing at the stars. And it was from this field that I observed and charted Halley’s Comet in late 1985. Around 1986-1987, a Lowe’s and a Wal-Mart shopping center, with the obligatory vast parking lot, plugged up my field. There was also a large theater and several restaurants that soon lined the bordering streets. Goodbye, peaceful wide-open spaces and hello, noisy overcrowding! The only saving grace to this was that, by this time, I had moved somewhere else.

Wide-open spaces always carry with them an appeal for me. I love the scene in the movie North by Northwest when Cary Grant is out on a remote Indiana road next to a cornfield and suddenly finds himself being chased by a crop-duster. I also enjoyed running around and through the many fields that existed (and no more) around my old high school. I also wonder what happened to the supposedly-protected species of owl there that built their homes in the ground and would stand by them, angrily screaming at any humans who came too close. Sometimes, when I’m on the road sitting as a passenger looking out the window, I’ll just stare at empty fields, wondering what the running surface there would be like, how bright the stars would look at night from them, or how numbered are their days before “civilization” supplants them with asphalt and concrete.