parks and recreation.

A role as old as it will be new

The idea of parks and recreation is not new. Babylonians built public gardens, even if the gardens were for the aristocratic public. And the Greeks honored recreation, even if those who were honored to participate were sometimes honored to death. The urge to create parks and participate in recreation is several millennia old. The role of parks and recreation in the new millennium will be a role as old as it will be new.

The issues surrounding parks and recreation in the new millennium raise some questions, and questions, more than answers, will definitely be the byword, password, and "oh my word" in the years ahead. If any of us caught in the current quantum shift of events feels confused, to borrow from the old sideshow barker: "You ain't seen nothin' yet!"

Every student of journalism knows that you don't dare turn in a story that doesn't answer who, what, when, where, and why. And even though all of us like a good story, the future is not yet our story to tell. We can talk about the past, we can be present front and center, but we are future dumb. Though we may have our suspicions about the future, in this country we are innocent until proven guilty, and our knowledge of the future is innocent until it isn't coming, but gone.

While it isn't advisable to drive into the future staring in the rear-view mirror, there is nothing like viewing the past to get a glimpse of the future. Looking backward can be forward-looking. Looking backward, parks and recreation is safe. The concept has been around for a long time, and anything that's been around for that long is a pretty good bet to be around a little longer. Change, however, is the only constant, and the best bet is that what we now know as parks and recreation won't necessarily be what we know in the future. The who, what, when, where, and why still need to be written. So in the spirit of parks and recreation, let's exercise our imagination on our mind's clear, broad field. No matter how old we are, we can exercise our imagination and are healthier for it.

Parks and recreation is certainly not just the playground for the young. Over the past 10 years the number of adults over 50 who have joined health clubs has increased by 100 percent. Even people who nave never worked out are working on it. A sound mind in a sound body is sound thinking. Sound thinking on the issue of parks and recreation in the new millennium means we may have to not only park our cars and take a walk but also park our attitudes and climb to a new perspective. All of us can make this climb. For many of us the challenge in life isn't how old we are but how old our attitudes are. Sometimes the best view is a change of view.

Much in life these days is on a pay-per-view basis, and we all pay for what we've seen in life. Scripture says that money is the root of all evil. So is its absence. The question is, Who is going to pay for parks and recreation in the new millennium? Some feel that only those who play should pay. Certainly without parks and recreation we would all pay. But those who can afford to pay the most are also those who can afford to play the most, and vice versa. Some people can't even afford to take their kids to the ballpark, let alone pay for the park. The answer as to who will have to pay for parks in the future is a democratic one. All of us. Some think that parks and recreation is an expendable and frivolous budget issue. But people who don't budget exercise and green-time into their daytime will face some very serious health issues in their lifetime. Even if we're not sure how the future will fit us, doctors tell us that recreation is the best way to stay fit for the future. The old nursery rhyme warns that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Boy, dull is only part of it. Psychologists and physiologists tell us that without play Jack's life will not only be dull it will be shortened and its quality questioned. If recreation is a healthy and qualitative alternative, the question is, Who wants to sign up for the alternative?

With dollar revenue for every aspect of social life being in broad demand and short supply, we might give some thought to saving as much as spending. In this regard, oftentimes making sure there are parks has more to do with what we don't do than what we do. We don't have to plant trees we don't chop down.

Scripture says it is among the highest of virtues to plant a fruit tree from which you will never pluck a piece of fruit. And even during a siege it is a taboo, according to the Book of Deuteronomy, to cut down a fruit tree. Not everyone who goes to a park or pitches horseshoes believes in God. But God is big on parks. After all, we may plan them, but God grows them. "It is forbidden," says the Talmud, "to reside in a community that does not have a green garden."

This country has not been given to us. It is on loan. Only God owns. The rest of us rent. The length of our lease on this land is dependent upon our ability to be good tenants. Mortality is everyone's eviction notice. In everyone's garden, character is the gardener.

At an individual level, everyone is asking for somethin whether we want more or have so much that all we can hope for is more wants. At a social level the demands on the tax base are growing and the moolah available shrinking. As the old song goes, "Something's gotta give, something's gotta give." Only in this case, it isn't something that's gotta give, it's someone. Someone's gotta give Someone's gotta give time. Someone's gotta give a damn. In the new millennium the public and private sector will have to partner up or, partner, we're heading for the last roundup.

What will parks and recreation be like in the new millennium? Probably a lot like what we know now ... and nothing like what we know now. I have a hard time believing that turn-of-the-century Victorians in whalebone corsets or young Prince Edward collars could have imagined monster trucks in the mud. Or jumping from bridges with elastic cords tied to your ankles. Or Club Med and topless morality. Yikes!

The visionary filmmaker Steven Spielberg was recently asked by USA Weekend magazine to envision family recreation in the next millennium. "Virtual reality will live up to its name for the first time in the next 10 years," said Spielberg. "You'll be able to have experiences that, in fact, don't require 40-foot palm trees and 38-foot T-Rexes. You'll feel the breezes. You'll smell the smells. Yet when you stand back and turn on a light to look at where you've been standing, you're just in a dark room with a helmet on." Sorry, Mr. Spielberg, sometimes a great leap forward is a giant step backward. Virtual reality may soon be a fact of life and still have virtually nothing in reality to do with the facts of life. Personally, in the future I want the wind at my back, not in a helmet in a dark room. Nevertheless, nature apparently is, or will be Hollywood-made to appear, as malleable as each of our natures.

We don't have to be Superman to move into the future faster than a speeding bullet. We don't have to do anything. In the future it will take all we can do just to hold on. Hanging on is sometimes the best way to hang in. Parks will be a great place to sit down, hang out, or "hang ten" and surf into the future.

Parks and recreation in the future will be like the past and the future. The faster we move into the future, the faster people will glamorize the past. Even to a nation of settlers, change is unsettling. In 2010, a 45-year-old might be very interested in taking his family to a 1970s theme park. It will remind the father of his past. It will feel familiar and safe and attractive. He will want to show his kids what it was like when a few folks still got up from the couch to change the channel. "No way, Dad!" "Way, son!"

Recreation for many of us is less an excuse to seek release from the common and more of an excuse to do something radical. No matter how fast some of us feel our life is going, the only thing we want is to go faster. Right now, for example, the Russian military will -- for your hard currency and recreation -- take you to the edge of space in a Mig fighter jet. Nyet, thank you. Some of us in the future won't be able to resist the latest anti-gravitational roller coaster, time-warp vacation villages, and extra-terrestrial dating service. Some of us don't know outer space from the space between our ears and will still be the first to sign up for executive seating on the rocket launch. What parks and recreation will be like in the future will be whatever people like. Parks and recreation may or may not make sense, but it's pleasure not reason that's the reason for our pleasure.

When will people go to parks and take their recreation in the future? Well, the seasons have always seasoned our decisions and will continue to do so. Some folks will still ski from the first to the last snow, while others will go swimming as soon as they can bear the cold and keep stroking until they're breaking ice. But we will also find new patterns that will shadow shifting realities in family and work.

Statistically, fewer and fewer families have one wage earner, and fewer and fewer of us are living in traditional two-parent, two-and-one-half children families. Who goes, when they get off, and with whom they go off will shift traditional vacation notions.

Today work is also being redefined. And recreation will shadow work's redefinition. Split-time, flextime, and moms and dads who have less time -- but now call it "quality time" -- will change vacation time. These days the office is no longer the office. As often as not, the office now is the home or the Internet. Getting away from the office in the near future may mean simply leaving home.

It may also mean that if more and more offices aren't offices, more and more vacations won't be vacations. To borrow from Bob Dylan, "Sometimes success is no success at all."

So where is parks and recreation heading? The answer is a bit like the Taoist lesson on life: "Those who know, do not say. And those who say, do not know." What we do know is that we can predict less about the vector and more about the velocity. As with everything else, parks and recreation is heading somewhere. Fast. Faster. Just when the advent in materials available made skiing faster, better, someone came up with acrobatic snowboarding. Just when surfing moved from Malibu to New Jersey, someone came up with full-on ocean windsurfing. Just when jogging went from the loneliness of the long-distance runner to 10,000 marathoners, someone came up with ultramarathons and the keen idea of loping across Death Valley. Wherever parks and recreation is heading, it'll be heading into the future borrowing from the past, just like we do. You can build a better park, but it's tough to come up with a better idea than a park.

Parks are not urban society's green veneers. Parks are skeletal to society. We'd flop without them. Nature nurtures. "Why, oh why, did I ever leave Ohio?" sang the sisters in the old Broadway hit My Sister Eileen. Why the sisters left was because there were things they "needed" to do, things they "needed" to see. Our wants and needs may be confused on occasion, but the why of parks and recreation in the new millennium is timeless. Human beings are an inquisitive species, a species that likes variance as much as it likes things to stay the same. People climb mountains because the mountains are there. As long as there are mountains, folks will want to climb them, cross them, take a picnic lunch and enjoy them. You don't have to be Heidi to feel so good in the mountains you want to yodel.

As long as we have been blessed with our bodies and souls, our bodies will want to follow where our souls will lead. And our soul, sang King David, likes to leap like a deer. Dear, don't fence me in. Recreation is the soul's re-creation.

Some of us feel that the future of parks and recreation is in our hands. Some of us feel that there are larger hands than ours at the helm, that destiny is left to the divine. Regardless, if we are solely responsible or are simply also responsible, the future will bear our fingerprints.

Some say that the best thing we can do for the future of parks and recreation is to do nothing. Leave the wild the wild. And there is a truth to that. But there is also a truth in the love of those who will plant and prop up tomorrow's trees against the winds of change. And disregard.

Recreation is its own reward. Reward yourself for being you. Certainly it takes effort to take a vacation. But take the time because time takes all of us. And life is no vacation.

Perhaps because I spend so much time in my head, I love being in the out of doors. My heart knows what my mind only thinks it knows. Whatever you know, don't park your care for parks. Not now. Not tomorrow.

Noah benShea Copyright 1999 All rights reserved

Noah benShea is a poet, philosopher, scholar, and international best-selling author. His essays on life, "Noah's Window,' are enjoyed by readers over the Internet and through the New York Times Newspaper Regional network. He may be reached at www.noahswindow.com.