The Horses of Van Cleve Park

I was five and on my way to Kindergarten in the Fall. 

My two older brothers and I welcomed the arrival of a new baby brother, and my father’s decision to pursue a bachelor’s degree at the age of 35. 

We moved from our home in a comfortable, professional predominately black South Minneapolis neighborhood in the early 1960’s, to reside in student housing provided by the University of Minnesota. I vividly remember the dark blue doors of the Quonset huts that made up the community. They looked just like the barracks featured in the Gomer Pyle show that aired years later. 461 University Village, we recited as our parents taught us the address to these new living quarters. 

Daddy, an army veteran, worked a lot of hours  at the Minneapolis Post Office. Mom had been working for Honeywell, but was now a stay-at-home mother with a new baby, and declining health issues that would plague her for years to come. My eldest brother, age 9, was only interested in baseball and Jesus, as our widowed maternal grandmother was mentoring him for ministry. My second oldest brother, age 8,  faced mental health challenges that kept him in health care facilities where we would dutifully and curiously go and visit. As I played with other children on the floor of his unit, I wondered if my brother would ever come back home to stay. 

University Village was a widely diverse, financially leveraged community where the residents were all students with families. It was, indeed, the best of times and the worst of times. In the Village, no one seemed to question our color, at least among my age group. It felt safe to me. We were a black family pursuing a dream. What I didn’t know didn’t hurt me. Families from India, Asia, Africa, Europe living together; their children playing sandlot baseball, Kick the Can and Freeze Tag until the street lights went on. Those were the sounds, that was the vibe of the Village.  

My mother was careful to teach us what was happening outside of our microcosm. She would tell us life stories like how our neighbors  across the way,  escaped from behind the Berlin Wall. I learned people everywhere did not easily co-exist in such spaces. 

But there was, far, far away (ok, two miles away), a utopia where I found wonderment,   exhilarating solace, and a place where my fantasy met reality.  There were no parks near University Village and playgrounds were scarce. The Village was surrounded by warehouses that we nicknamed the Yellow Building and the White Building, which sat between fossil strewn alleys.

Van Cleve Park  was near Rexall Drugstore (I think the druggist’s name was Mr. Kellerman), and sometimes when Daddy had time between classes and before his night-shift job sorting mail, he would take me with him when he picked up Mama’s prescriptions, and we would go to Van Cleve Park. Or maybe it was a Saturday when he had a little time. I don’t know because I couldn’t tell time. I only knew that those times were few and far between, and never seemed to last long enough. 

It didn’t matter. I was with my Dad and he was taking me to my favorite place. 

Unless there was a planned family outing or church picnic at Minnehaha Falls, these times with my Daddy were rare, but oh so wonderful. There was a sense of adventure, despite my father not being an adventurous type, at least on the outside. Daddy was practical.  Children needed fresh air and exercise; and we could make the most out of a trip to the drugstore. 

He parked the car. We strode past the slides, past the ordinary seat swings, and around the jungle gym and monkey bars, to the spot. And there they were. Unmenacing horses with long eyes, wide mouths with horse teeth, and colorful plastic manes with indentations and crevices that made them bigger than life.  None of that baby swing action. These horses were made for riding, albeit suspended from horizontal steel beams with vertical bars hanging  down on either side attached to each horse.  

Daddy would hoist me up on my own horse and I would take off, the reins (ok, handles)  under my control, and freedom to let the imagination roam. I was safe, my Daddy standing nearby, smiling. He didn’t need to push me because I was in charge to ride the territory, pig tails flying in the wind, my feet in the stirrups (yes, I know, pedals), the movement natural… push, pull, glide, push, pull, glide. 

The words political assassination and depictions of water hoses spraying people to the ground, were far from my mind, vocabulary and worldview.  People who looked like me, like my family, were on television marching in the streets and sitting at places where other people did not want them to be. And what about that nice man, President John Kennedy, who had the pretty wife, and the two children that looked like they would be fun to play with… Caroline and John-John? I didn’t think he wanted to hurt us. 

But nevertheless, I didn’t have to be afraid, especially since my sweet, strong father was standing guard while I moved and time stood still.  It was a time of innocence, squeals and serenity; a time to be with my Daddy who down through the years continued to make me feel safe, before passing away many years later in 2016. 

Time seemed to stand still as I rode through moments of bliss. None of that fast-moving stuff like we experience today, where days easily become weeks and months pass by in  moments. 

It was  a time of childhood and easy gliding on the horses. But alas, it was time to get ready for Kindergarten and go to school like my big brothers. What awaits me at school? I just have a feeling, can’t quite put my saddle on it, but I just don’t think that going to school will be like riding the horses, with my Dad standing by, at Van Cleve Park.   

Oh well, I was five.