By INGRID McCLEARY
To paraphrase comedian George Carlin, people need a place for all their stuff. The home is the biggest holder of stuff. When you go on vacation, you bring some of that stuff with you in suitcases. If, while on vacation, you go to the beach, you bring a smaller version of your stuff in a beach bag. If, while on the beach, you go buy some food, you bring along your purse or wallet. And if those carriers become too large, there's the final stuffing place, your pockets.
All of which returns, at some point, to the main repository--the home.
"A place for all that stuff" is what I think of whenever I drive on Remington Avenue, off Mathilda, where nine homes are being built. Forty years ago, only four to six houses would have been constructed in the same acreage now deemed large enough for nine homes.
It seems people need larger homes for all their stuff. But in order to give new homes additional space within the home, the front, side, and back yards are sacrificed.
But people need outside space, too; if not for stuff like patio furniture and hammocks, then for the Vitamin D they absorb through the skin from the sun. When you lose your own back yard, you seek space elsewhere and you don't want to drive 20 miles to find it.
That's where neighborhood parks come in.
In my first column for the Sun [Nov. 3, 1993], I wrote about Las Palmas Park eventually replacing my old stomping grounds, the cherry orchards. While I preferred climbing the natural limbs of the cherry trees over the wooden rungs in the strategically placed playground, it was still a good place to while away the afternoon.
Now I power-walk through the park once or twice a week, and the place is never deserted. There's usually a junior softball or volleyball game going on. At least one family is barbecuing, one couple is stretched out on a blanket, three kids are rollicking in the sand, four dogs are rollicking in the dog park and tennis balls are regularly lobbed over the fence by at least eight tennis players.
People need outside space to do recreational activities (the operative word here is "activity"; watching television doesn't count). With their 4,400-acre homestead, our founding family, the Murphys, had ample space for their own tennis and volleyball courts, even a baseball diamond and a jogging track, if they'd been so inclined, but they weren't because physical labor provided all the activity they needed back then, and most of those sports hadn't been invented yet.
Luckily, Sunnyvale has 17 neighborhood parks and one regional park, totaling more than 844 acres. We also have two golf courses, 68 tennis courts and 132 sports fields.
I hope this consoles those new home buyers when they discover their back yard consists of one skinny stretch of grass or barbecue brick area. Lucky for them they've got the Sunnyvale Community Center across the street. Lucky for those recent home buyers near Crawford Drive who have Las Palmas Park right behind them.
Do builders consider park proximity when they build new homes? Or is Sunnyvale more fortunate than most in that the city planners acted wisely by planting award-winning parks within walking distance of most Sunnyvale residents?
Land is at a premium. Homes are larger. Lots are smaller. All things considered, parks are a good compromise.
Besides, it gives us new places to bring our stuff.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, May 29, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.