By Jeff Warren

When I was a teen, I read an article about the famous football Coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg. Children used to play tackle football on his front lawn. His wife complained that the kids were tearing up the lawn.

“Let them play,” said Mr. Stagg. “I’m more interested in raising children than raising grass.”

I loved that sentiment. Once, all of St. Helena seemed to think that way.

Until his death in the early sixties, our own Mr. Carpy was the poster child for community members who understood the importance of giving kids an opportunity to express themselves through physical activities.

Baseball was the coin of the realm in small towns back then. But other activities were encouraged. Mr. Carpy coached young boys (yes, it was pre Title IX) in tackle football, basketball, boxing and tumbling. How many kids took Red Cross lessons at Mr. Carpy’s private pool?

Grass fields were at each school. (OK, when the RLS was built in the 50’s we had to play on rocks and dirt), but the intent was there. Grass would come when money was available. At each school site, hundreds of trees were cut that kids might have room to play. Folks didn’t hate trees. It was simply a question of proper priorities.
We were City slickers when we moved here in the 50’s. Want to talk about Nirvanah for an 11 year old? It’s endless fields of grass--not hot, fenced in asphalt with white lines painted on it, like in the city.

To insure that the fields weren’t just for kids, Mr. Carpy (as the anonymous What’s-his-name did at the high school, recently) paid for lights on Carpy Field, so that adults, both men and women, could play softball in the evenings
History doesn’t record neighbors on Tainter and Adams threatening law suits. Sure, they could have complained about the traffic or the intrusion of night baseball in their neighborhood, but apparently it never crossed their minds. Or if it did, the community wisely paid no attention.

Fields were for playing on—day or night. They knew that when they purchased their homes there.

Of course, that was then and this is now.

It first hit home when the six acre Meily Park was designed for soccer fields and basketball courts. Today’s citizens turned out to complain. They wanted a “passive” park. Night basketball was unthinkable. Couldn’t they have a “Victory Garden” so they could weed and play farmer, together?

Though 65 acres had been scraped (and thousands of vines and hundreds of trees uprooted for houses) suddenly a couple of scraggly oaks and a few dozen “historic vines” had to be saved. What could have been six acres of fields for kids is now less than one acre. The irony is undeniable. We live in a county with 480,000 acres of open space, and a few disgruntled oldsters denied fields for children, in favor of our “urban forests.”

According to the Star, history is repeating itself. The unelected Tree Committee (well meaning though they may be) has frowned on Crane Park as a sight for a skateboard park for kids. They want further study before “the decision is made to create a play area for a small segment of our community to the possible detriment of the rest.”

Of course, the city wouldn’t be considering Crane Park, except that the cost to have archeologists excavate the site on Pope St. is so prohibitive, that they’ve been forced to search for another location.

This proves that the Tree Committee members aren’t the only ones today who are anti-children. We can all be respectful of possible Indian Burial grounds, or mounds with artifacts, but we’re not talking about the plains of Troy where Achilles, grieving the loss of Petroculus, slew Hector and desecrated his body behind his chariot until a humiliated Priam begged for the return of his boy’s remains. We need no Schliemann’s to lead a Troy-style dig here. Couldn’t we just get an archeological class from Napa College, or Cal to do it as a “project” instead of spending over half a million dollars? No way are arrowheads and some broken pottery worth that kind of dough.

Perhaps this attitude change is simply the result of the declining birth rate. Maybe when families had more than 2.1 kids per, we were more in tune with the needs of children.

We’ve become a town where City Council members lead neighbors in a fight against full size gyms for a Boys and Girls Club. We’ve watched the aged hippies parade to the microphone to stop basketball courts and soccer fields at Meily Park. We’ve seen State Government stop a skateboard Park because of the expense of excavating Indian artifacts.

And now the ubiquitous, unelected Tree Committee (they also weighed in on the private property sale of the “Jacksie” Winery to the Vintners) questions a skateboard park for children—because it benefits “a small segment of the community to the detriment of the rest.”

Is this what we’ve become? Where are the voices of outrage?

Funny thing is, my guess is that the skateboard park won’t be a hit—wherever it is built. Skateboarders generally like being “out-law-ers”, and aren’t’ into the establishment gig. But who are we to tell kids how to have fun? We met the demand for baseball. We should meet the demand for skateboarders.

Kids ought to count more than trees. Trees can be replaced. Kids can’t.

Sorry kids. Unlike Mssers. Carpy and Stagg, it appears this generation is more interested in raising trees than kids.

It’s a sign of the times. Better that you go snatch some purses instead.