The Park is more crowded than the last time I visited. There are more people walking on the sidewalks than playing in the wide, luscious, green fields. These fields are about half the size of football fields and are usually occupied by people wanting to throw footballs or frisbees. The sidewalks were paved all over the Park, making you able to view the it in every perspective possible. As I walk on the paved, grey, pathways, I see a girl I am familiar with…a girl whose name I do not remember. I do not approach her or say hi, since the last time I saw her was sometime in middle school. She matured much more since then. Her stature was tall–looked about 5’7.  Her hair is no longer in the bun or pushed back with a headband she always kept. Instead, it is straight down past an inch of her shoulders. Her skin is the color of milk chocolate, but a little lighter. Her style is now intimidating as she wears a black leather jacket and black jeans. Her friends walk beside her on both of her sides on the sidewalk. They are talking and laughing. She and her friends then enter a cupcake store, Jilly’s Cupcakery, across the street. I decided to move my location where the restaurants are too.  

I can see the Park from the side where all the restaurants are lined up on the right. I never realized how spacious the entire Park was–it covers approximately 10 square miles. There are many tables and chairs–a majority of them being black and made out of metal–in front of the restaurants, facing the view of the Park. There is always shade, so it is a great place to cool down, relax and get your hunger satisfied with one of the various types of food that consists mostly of American and Italian. There is also a sidewalk that runs along in front of the line of restaurants for easy access. I am sitting on a plastic, 3 foot orange stool right in front of a frozen yogurt store, Yogli Mogli. There is a picture of frozen yogurt that screams “Eat me! I’m delicious!”  pasted on the window that is similar to the size of our classroom whiteboard. I smile as I watched a child babble, tug on his caregiver’s shirt and point at the picture, wanting to eat it. I realized that the restaurants were very good at advertising after I noticed my attention had been pointed to the smell of BBQ wafting in the air. Stopping myself from spending money, I decided to go back to the Park.

Walking on the Park’s paved sidewalk, I wink at my little sister as she walks by me with her fingers laced with her boyfriend’s. I look around and see groups of many people. Different races and different ethnicities. My attention always goes to the pets I see at the Park, then the owners. A black and white hound that was bound to a well built black man, accompanied by an elder woman with a hunched back, hands held behind her and gray hair, a little girl that came up to the man’s hips, and two boys a few inches taller than the girl. A white Maltese that looked 10 inches long and 2 feet high was being walked by a young Asian woman, who was holding the hand of her partner. I knew the man next to her was her partner since she had addressed him as “honey” in Korean and both were wearing rings on their left ring finger. And upon looking at a familiar shaved Yorkie, I saw my friend from my church. I ran up to her, said hello and began walking with her and her dog. She was alone, but came to the Park with her parents. After what I had seen and heard, this convinced me that the Park was mainly occupied by families more than friends. Taking this unexpected meeting as a perfect opportunity, I decided to interview her.