Gadsden Park 
                  - Written and Contributed by Edward C. Woodward      

I live in Tampa about 10 minutes from Gadsden Park, setting for the first installment of Green with your Offspring. How fitting since the park and my native Florida county are named after the same man, James Gadsden. I didn’t uncover the connection until researching the park’s name. Seems like good roots for a column.

Shaded by a cypress on the shore of Lake Gadsden, Sam, my one-year-old son, and I watched a Double-crested Cormorant skim the waters, circle our way, then fly overhead low enough that we heard its rapid wings, which sounded like a faraway creaking door. Moments like this remind me that it doesn’t take woods immersion to escape an urban pace.

_______  I still marvel when a pelican flies by my house, or a pack of shovel birds – my daughter’s name for ibis – snack in my neighbor’s front lawn.  _______

But an urban setting doesn’t have to be a distraction. I’ve seen a Roseate Spoonbill in a dingy retention pond fronting an apartment complex at a busy intersection. I was surprised, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. Two bays were within miles and living long before development on the Tampa peninsular where I live. It helps to zoom the mind out like a Google map and see a larger setting than the street before you. It helps me realize how wildlife has adjusted to us. But I still marvel when a pelican soars over my urban neighborhood, or a pack of shovel birds – my daughter’s name for ibis – snack in my neighbor’s front lawn.

Gadsden Park abuts the ever-busy MacDill Air Force Base, which owned the park land and housed barracks there in the 1940s and 1950s. But the park’s entry to Lake Gadsden insulates you from base traffic. Live oaks with trunks that outsize the girth of bull gators buffer an asphalt trail that loops about a mile around the spring-fed lake. Another shaded trail encircles the park. But we chose the lake loop in full sun that passes a dog park (with poop bags that double for dirty diapers, too) and the base. As we passed the base the national anthem played over loudspeakers, a daily occurrence at 4:30 p.m. We stopped. So did drivers on the other side of the fence.

A few minutes later Sam was stroller weary. Un-strapped and mobile, he drunk-sailor stumbled to a patch of weeds and dirt, squatted sumo style, grabbed a stick and started digging. After he ditched the stick to burrow his fingers in the dirt and pull weeds, I joined him. Man, that cool earth felt good to touch. Yet another reminder to see things anew from Sam’s perspective.

_______  Un-strapped and mobile, he drunk-sailor stumbled to a patch of weeds and dirt, squatted sumo style, grabbed a stick and started digging.  _______

It was hot, but a breeze kept us cool and shade trees were nearby if needed. We rested under a cypress tree, one of a dozen clumped on the lake’s northwest shore where we saw the cormorant overhead. The limbs are low enough for toddlers to touch, so Sam grabbed a handful of soft grass-green needles that felt like shag carpet. Next, near the shoreline I saw a turtle, or so I thought. Looking closer, it turned out to be a submerged plastic bag stuck to a stick. Bummed at first, I soon saw the moment’s upside for older kids: a teachable moment about watershed runoff! And yet another reason to buy a golf toy: a ball retriever picks up trash, too.

Soon Sam and I left Gadsden Park. "Unk ah," Sam said, his open hand raised skyward. As far as my wife and I can tell, the expression and hand gesture punctuates moments of discovery or contentment, among other things. "Unk ah," I agreed.