Dump Park by Stuart Scipione

Today I had the oppertunity to travel to far away parks and enjoy this beautiful weather. My friend Chris and I took a tour of three parks and one in particular stood out. I wish I could say it was for good reasons.>Hudson park is a beautiful non-pre fab park that clearly some people worked very hard to have built. Today upon entering the park I was struck with what looked like a dump. There was more garbage on the ground than there was in any one of the 8 garbage cans located INSIDE THE PARK. One park, 8 trash cans that seemingly nobody was using. This bothers me for a plethora of reasons, not the least of which is it's just flat out uncomfortable. I shouldn't hit a ledge and knock over a half empty bottle of powerade and an entire container of leftover chinese food. Hudson isn't even that bad a town, so it's not like homeless people are setting up camp there after sundown, but it certainly seemed like it.
Another reason this irks me is, seriously, somebody worked hard to have this park built for you spoiled little brats mucking it up. I assume if you're too damn lazy to walk the 8 FEET to the trash can you were probably too lazy to go to town meetings and do the fund raising that was necessary to build the park you are now shitting all over. Other people busted their asses to get themselves a place to go and you have the nerve to spit in their faces in such a manor. I have worked to get parks built and if I ever saw one of the parks I put effort into looking like that you can bet your ass I'd be down there ruining some slob's day. But for real, the dirtiest section of the park sat within 15 YARDS of five separate garbage bins. Inexcusable. The first thing you're parents teach you is to clean up after yourself.But still, the MOST offensive part of this is simple logic. Other towns in this state are trying to get parks built. When a town is looking to build a park they look towards existing parks to get a feel of what they can expect a skate park will bring to their town. Anyone who has worked to have a place built knows what an uphill climb stereotypes can make it. Town organizers already think ill of skateparks before ever seeing one, so when another town goes to look in to setting up a place they are definitely going to go take a look at places like Hudson. The condition I saw it in today would lead to a definite veto.I don't know about anybody else reading this but I love traveling to other towns to ride new things. I'd like it if one day most towns had parks. But if Hudson is any indication we are all taking a huge step away from that goal. Every time I get to a park one of the first things I do is clear trash. It's part of the responsibility that comes with the gift of a place to go. These are our parks, it's up to us to take pride in them. If you see a bottle on the ground put it in the trash. If you see someone tossing crap on the ground call them on it. I'm not saying throw down, but enlighten them to the impact they have on the BMX and skate communities acting so selfishly. It's the butterfly effect. One piece of trash makes it ok for two pieces of trash. One bad park in the state makes all parks bad. Try not to be such friggin slobs.