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Left: Lynn water tower posing next to its filtered and unfiltered contents at the Lynn Woods Reservation.

The Lynn Woods Reservation Map and Guide, published in 1999, states that at 2,200 acres, Lynn Woods Reservation is the 2nd largest municipal park in the country. This is a somewhat dubious claim, depending on what your definition of a "city" park is, and is belied by a search of "largest municipal parks" in Google.

Now that I've questioned it's credibility, the Guide also says that 30 miles of trail cross the Lynn Woods'  area, and it occupies one-fifth of all the land in the city. One of the claims in the guide I can't question, however, is that Lynn Woods "represents a significant natural watershed and public recreational resource in eastern Massachusetts." Indeed, no swimming is allowed in any of the "ponds or reservoirs in the reservation as they are all used for Lynn's drinking water supply."

I pondered this fact as I hiked the mile or so from the Great Woods Road entrance to Overlook Crag, which yielded a spectacular view of the watershed. With no map in hand, I envisioned the hike as a straight line from point A to point B along a wide unpaved road. In fact, there are numerous narrow trails through forest understory that snake up and down rocky hills, cross babbling brooks and traverse mossyrocked peaks. See pictures of my journey.

The word "watershed" brings to my mind a valley shedding water from its higher points to its lowest. Water flows from hilltops, storm drains, brooks and rivers, rainfall, from many sources draining into one giant pond or stream. Nature has its own trickle down economy, and what we leave at the higher points of the watershed ultimately finds its way down to our drinking water source.

Lynn is located in what the state calls the North Coastal Watershed, which has a total drainage area of approximately 168 square miles. This watershed includes the Danvers, Essex, Saugus, Pines, and Annisquam Rivers. There are approximately 2,428 acres of lakes and ponds in the North Coastal watershed, and it encompasses all or part of 26 Massachusetts municipalities, supporting a population of approximately 500,000 people.

The US EPA sees things on a grander scale. The North Coastal Watershed is part of what they call the Charles Watershed.

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Before and after:

At 10:00 am on Saturday, April 18, members of the East Lynn Community Project converged on Kiley Park to rid its  children's playground, baseball fields, tennis and basketball courts of winter debris and litter.  As the days get warmer and clean-up projects build momentum across the city of Lynn, the folks of ELCP come every first and third Wednesday of the month to clean up Kiley Park. Now, with the commencement of National Volunteer week (April 19-25), they are ramping up their efforts by holding weekend cleanups.

This past Saturday's cleanup consisted of about a dozen residents and members of the ELCP who want to make the city of Lynn and their neighborhoods a better place to live. A youth baseball team practicing on the field also pitched in.

Sue, one of the leaders of ELCP told me how she had picked up six pounds of broken glass mixed in with the mulch that covers the children's playground. Much work still needs to be done to make Kiley Park a safe and beautiful place in which to play, and the ELCP hopes to engage the city of Lynn and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

The next weekend clean-up is scheduled for Sunday morning, April 26, at 10:00 am. Take pride in Lynn and be there!

More before and after pictures.

I just noticed this musical about Hurricane Katrina in the upcoming events section of the SCI Lynn website.  It's called Rockin' Ralph's Roadhouse. It looks promising. Check out their website; you can hear some of the music.

One of the most brilliant and biting satirists in the United States is Steven Colbert. In a story on his show on Comedy Central, he took a soundbite from Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Chris Wallace's Fox News channel show explaining how if an ICBM from North Korea was launched and heading toward Hawaii, "we might think of doing something about it." Colbert's comment: "Rest easy Hawaii. You're on Washington's list of places we might consider saving. If you want to know how that works, ask New Orleans."

Dear Lynn,

I just want to say thanks to the guy in the business next door. For the past 2 weeks his 3 pitbulls have not been there. His store has been closed. Since we don't talk like we used to, I have no idea why. Now he is back, and so are the dogs.

I just want to say we felt so blessed to be left in peace those 2 weeks. No snarling, barking, crazy, inbred pitbull terriers left out in the enclosed space next door, fighting in the alley between our buildings. We received a reprieve from the hellish, Omen-like ferociousness of the demon dogs.

They tore a hole through the fence between our properties. Still, the city allows the owner next door to keep them.

True, they haven't hurt anyone--man, woman or beast that I know of. But they are threatening, and why he wants to keep 3, I do not know. I do not blame the dogs. Still, when I'm walking my dog, and his are clustered peaceful behind the glass door of his business, it is as though a switch is flipped, and they all go into a frenzy.

They are strong dogs. If the glass door is not locked, they can push it open. I have seen them bite through the chain link fence out back and escape from their pen. They are determined.

The man loves his dogs. I just want to say that the peace these two weeks has been heavenly. And now they're back.

Living in sin,
The Lynn-side edition.

Just prior the new year, I decided to see what Strawberry park looks like now, after the clean-up in August. As you can see, this picture was taken before the recent snowfalls. I was happy to see a boy and his mother playing on the newly painted basketball court. On the tennis courts, youths played a friendly game of soccer.

The overgrown weeds surrounding the perimeter of the park were gone.  Although the basketball nets were not hung, a colorful mural was painted on the court, a marked improvement from the various tags scribbled on it prior to the clean-up.  The boy's mother said that someone had been coming once a week or so to maintain the improvements to the park.

Part of the Solution youth council, Straight Ahead Ministries, the Lynn DPW and the Essex County Community Organization (ECCO) were among the groups who participated in this park restoration.

See what the electrical box below looked like before the cleanup.

Below: Eastern Ave. from Essex St. looking east after last week's snowstorm.

Or was it two weeks ago?  With snow comes  both complaints and cooperation in Lynn. Complaints fall when the city tickets homeowners for not shoveling their sidewalks. Cooperation comes when residents chip in to not only do the sidewalks in front of their house, but the sidewalks in front of their neighbors'.

I was recently at the Lynn Department of Public Works to get some free sand and salt mixture to put on my sidewalks. I am discovering that it is wise to take advantage of anything free in these times of economic hardship. My hours at work were recently cut back.

At the DPW's main office on Commercial St., there was a fellow traveler getting his sand and salt mix. His van was filled with a dozen buckets to my 3 retail-sized empty pet-friendly ice melting mix containers. I had come unprepared. He graciously offered me one of his buckets. He gets the buckets for free from a grocery store close to his home in Lynn.

He told me that he lives on a dead-end street that the city sometimes doesn't plow. He gets sand for his whole street. He uses his snowblower to clear his street and the sidewalks of his elderly neighbors. There was no hint of complaint in his voice; he seemed happy to do it. It was his self-reliance and gift of service to his community that I admired.

More scenes of Lynn in winter:

A wintry sky over houses and a church on Eastern Ave.

A fence.

A willow branch

Crows

See the whole series of photos.

"Dr. King, meet President Obama." This was the title of a sermon I listened to on Sunday. If only Dr. King had lived to dwell in the promised land; at best, he saw it from the mountaintop. Ring in the New Year, or rather, the changing of the guard, with this music video by Filmstrip International featuring music by Jim Infantino.

Speaking of change, I have read that the US Census bureau predicts that whites will cease to be the majority somewhere around the middle of this century if current demographic trends continue. Some people find this trend threatening.

In truth, how would it feel to be on the short end of the stick? I can't say that I'm 100% comfortable with it. Change scares me at times, while at other times it exhilarates me. We all contain seeds of distrust for "the other" who we feel competes with us for resources, jobs, etc.  Some may be more self-aware of this distrust than others. Some may act out on it without being aware of it. Some may see their actions as defending what they perceive to be rightfully theirs.

Yet America has prided itself on being the "great melting pot." To me that means America welcomes all races, creeds and nationalities, and all flee-ers from religious and other types of prosecution. My ancestors came here to flee prosecution. They took the land by force. How can their descendents then morally deny entry to anyone seeking a new life? There weren't any laws that said it was OK to come here and take this land.

Yet that's what our ancestors did. Woody Guthrie sang, "This land is your land. This land is my land. This land was made for you and me." It's when we try to impose limits on "you and me" that people disagree. 

This is a picture of the basketball court at Strawberry Park in Lynn, just prior to a cleanup by "Part of the Solution" youth group. Old graffiti has been painted over. It's a placeholder of sorts because shortly afterward, a mural was painted on this spot in conjuction with the cleanup. Strawberry Park is on Strawberry St. near the Stop & Shop on Western Ave. Part of the Solution is the youth advisory group of the Communities that Care coalition (CTC). The cleanup happened in August 2008.