FREE PLAY Is Alive And Well

Put away the cellphones and head for the park

Do you have a favorite public park in your neighborhood?

We do. At our Park on any given day, you’ll find children immersed in play, adults walking their dogs or sitting on benches in civil conversation, people exercising on the pickleball and tennis and volleyball courts, and toddlers running and screaming with joy on the splash pad. Our Park is named “Hessel Park,” and maybe your favorite park is a lot like ours.

For this old schooler, I remember that feeling of hearing the bell signaling school is out and blasting out the front door of the school and running for home as fast as I could. The local park was often the meet-up place with my friends: no cell phones back in that day, no TV computer games, just the pure joy of free play and adventure and that incomparable feeling of freedom. We had to keep an eye on the clock because we had to be home by dinner. My parents rang a big bell that hung off the back of the house and we came a-runnin’.

That was a long time ago, but lo and behold, when you get married and have kids, history repeats! I have so many good memories walking our kids down to the Park when they were infants, then toddlers, then grade schoolers and then once they reached high school, they were just “out there“ on their own.

Since grandkids graced our lives, we have been going through the same life cycle of taking them to their Chicago neighborhood parks, and we’ve also been taking them to Hessel Park for the last 15 years starting as toddlers. Toddlers, of course, have one basic method of play: they run around like goofy squirrels and scream. That’s it! So, if you’re a newbie grandparent and you want your grandchild to have some crazy fun, there is still nothing better than the local Park.

Our grandkids have been coming down to our house each summer for a one week “Grandma and Grandpa Camp (GG Camp),“ and we will walk down to Hessel Park multiple times – walking and talking, walking and talking. My wife and I station ourselves on one of the many benches in the Park to watch our grandkids do what they do best, which is launch into crazy free play running all over the Park, making up games and making up rules as they go, and attracting other kids to join the posse. They always meet new kids at the Park and come back with stories to tell.

Even though our grandkids have their own cell phones, when they come to GG Camp we have their parent’s permission to make the cell phones “off limits,” (more or less). When we head to the Park, the cell phones stay home on the kitchen counter and when they get to the Park, they instantly revert to just being kids. It confirms to me that despite the addictive pull of good and bad social media, free play rules and is still alive and well.

Over the decades we have appreciated the work of the Champaign Park District (CPD) to constantly improve Hessel Park’s 22.2 acres for everyone in town: upgraded playgrounds; splash pad; benches for sitting; drinking fountains; covered pavilions with grills and picnic tables for family gatherings; large and clean restrooms; a winding 0.6-mile concrete walking path around the entire perimeter of the Park; expanded parking; new tennis, pickleball, and volleyball courts; sculptures and monuments; and colorful flower gardens that are meticulously maintained year-round.

What more can you ask of a Park?

Hessel Park has evolved as the town and the University have evolved such that it is a Park for everyone: every race, color, creed, and nationality. I get no greater pleasure than driving by the Park on a sunny summer weekend seeing it bustling with diverse families enjoying its beauty and the many entertainment events that are scheduled by CPD. You can download for FREE CPD’s “Tree Walk Companion” describing 36 different varieties of trees. In a country that complains every day about how divided we are, Hessel Park is truly “an oasis of humanity“ that brings people young and old together in a healthy, peaceful, inclusive, and joyful way.

There is nothing that soothes the soul and raises the spirit like being outside and connected with nature’s green and earth’s blue sky, the warmth of the sun, fresh air, and the randomness and serendipity of free play in the Park.

Let’s go play!