Visions of a new city park

The house next door sits vacant. For months a cracking foundation and dilapidated roof have remained free of human contact. Trees send their roots deep under its ancient concrete base and branches pry away siding with each gust of the wind. Its former inhabitants have left it for the mind-bogglingly constrictive comforts of life in nearby Chatham village, without even putting the property up for sale.

I often sit and stare at the shame of such a decrepit house still standing yet serving no purpose... and my mind wanders...

The split in the foundation finally tears the house asunder and from the rubble rises a delegation of stately sycamores and red oaks fighting to regain position. With the house completely unlivable, and truly unsalvageable, the Brain Trust pools its resources and becomes the land's new stewards. Piece by piece the remains get taken away and recycled, perhaps at the East End's Construction Junction.

In its place a small winding trail takes you from a small gazebo, for pipe smokers and picnickers, overlooking Olympia Street and snakes you past a rose garden and a plot where blueberries are just about ripe enough to be picked from their bushes. A special dog park sits conveniently juxtaposed to Rohm Way, a now near famous dog walking alley, equipped with trash cans and bags with which to dispose of canine defecation. On the left sits a piece of orange-yellow steel sculpture reminiscent of the uncanny french-fry art to be found in Frank Curto Park along Bigelow Boulevard. (Every great park needs ineffable sculpture.) I hear the slight trickle of a newly commissioned fountain, and the giggles of children running just out of sight of their promenading parents as they climb on the bust of Tom, who's decision to rejoin the Pipe Club unknowingly make all of this possible.

And then I awake, and come to my senses. The hideous uninhabited behemoth of of a house sits untended and unloved. There are no blueberries. No dog park. No steel in the vague shape of haphazardly discarded french fries. No fountain. And alas, no bust of our scraggly bearded defector.

As members of such an organization as this Brain Trust & Pipe Club, it is always our right to dream.