[Posted on behalf of my wife Cathy. –Scott Denham]

I think it was a blessing in disguise that the town did not receive grant money from the state for the bocce ball and croquet park at the end of South Street. This is a already beautiful natural park without a bunch of grading and money spent and the view ruined. After all, this area is supposed to be the greenway! This beautiful area should stay a viewscape and bird refuge and should not ever become an urban type park or ball fields. This area is already a lovely grass field bordered by a wood. It is the epitome of the viewscape that we should be preserving. As we develop densely in downtown we need such green areas close to town to maintain our connection to nature and also to benefit wildlife. I love to walk the South Street greenway loop every day. I have seen an indigo bunting pair, rare birds in town, with frequency. I also saw a kingfisher pair during May several times. The call of the kingfisher is very beautiful and they are majestic birds. I have also seen different warblers this Spring as they migrate through. And, of course, I see our beloved bluebirds. The birds are living along the greenway because there is natural grass field which provides them with a free grocery store. “Three grasshoppers, please,” they seem to say as they swoop down into the tall grass. I am renewed each day by my walk down this greenway. It should remain as natural as possible.

The parks and recreation department recommended bocce ball and croquet courts right where there is beautiful field of grass! They had in future plans a soccer field right in the place where the indigo buntings live and nest! While I think soccer fields and other organized game fields are important, this is not the proper location. The bocce courts of Europe are near housing, usually on a piazza close to apartments. An excellent location for the bocce court would be in the Antiquity development or in Davidson Woods or other new development, on a small green space between the housing units. Croquet courts are also quite easy to locate in new housing developments. Or we could put a croquet court on the outfield of a baseball field. These amenities should be made available other places and our natural areas should be preserved and protected. Perhaps natural areas do not seem fancy, but they are wonderfully inexpensive to maintain giving enormous bang for the buck. A new best-selling book entitled Last Child in the Woods is a clarion call to preserve natural spaces for the mental health and renewal of our children. Not only soccer fields provide recreational value. A simple walking path through a beautiful field is the most renewing of parks; that is what we have at the end of South Street. The outlying areas of Davidson have Fisher Farm as green space; we in town need to preserve South Street Greenway as it is. We also need to seek greater open space preservation in town for a green future!
Thank you very much.
Cathy Denham

Thank you for your elegant and sensible essay. I walk the greenway daily too, and appreciate the brief respite from development. There are also deer, beaver and groundhogs living on or very close to the greenway. It will be much healthier for all the flora and fauna if the humans just quietly and briefly pass through.

There’s enough activity at the ball fields. If a bocce court i developed, someone will want to put up lights and cut the grass with a riding mower everyday.

How about building a bocce court on the traffic island in front of Town Hall? I’ll play, and what a nice welcoming symbol for Davidson it would be. Davidsonnews.net correspondents could challenge the Planning Department– now that would be fun energetic contest!