An empty park bench and a mysterious man help me uncover a secret about my humanity.
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Story created & performed by:
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Podcast Coordinator: Cori Birce
Hey, everybody, Aaron here, hope you're doing well. So really quick, this was supposed to be just a stand alone story, what you're about to hear now, but it ended up inspiring Cori and I to actually go out and try to discover and accomplish something that we documented and are going to be releasing next week, sort of like a seven minute documentary kind of thing. So in a way, next week's episode is a sequel to what you're about to hear. So make sure and tune in next week for that. For now, enjoy this story titled Who is James Part?
So who is James Park? That's what I was asking myself when I was looking at this bench. It was maybe two feet away from me. I'm peering at it. And there's this metal engraving that says, "In loving memory of James Park, you will never be forgotten". And I don't know what got into me that day, but I was fascinated by this. And I'm just looking at this engraving and these words. Now see, this bench was a little stop along a bike trail and this bike trail is amazing. Goes on for miles and miles and miles. It's out in the country. It goes through the woods, through the marsh, through farmland, as far as you can see. And my family and I have been using this bike trail just to, you know, for stress relief and for and for exercise.
We've been really getting into biking lately. And I decided to go out by myself one day. It was beautiful weather. It was like seventy five degrees. The wind is just flowing through the corn and the wheat, sun was out, but not too hot. And I just stood there because I was taking a water break and just looking around and just being more observant, because when I looked around in nature, I was just in awe of how it just sort of flows, you know what I'm saying?
Like the trees and the plants and the animals and all this stuff, they just sort of flow and exist despite any sort of obstacles. They sort of bend with a deal with it, come back from it. They're just existing. They're not pushing back. You know, that's a human thing, like pushing against it. And and maybe that's what makes us unique. But as I stood there, I was just really reflective. And I saw this bench in this name, James Park.
And I thought to myself, who is this guy really?
And so I had some cell service. I took my phone out and I started looking up his name, James Park. And the crazy thing is a million results came up. It was like some actual parks in America, some people named James Park all over the country. And I didn't feel like doing, you know, investigative research. I didn't want have to subscribe to Ancestry at this point and do a DNA test. Right? But I still was really curious about the idea of James never being forgotten.
And I thought to myself, you know, what if James doesn't have any family left? Or is his wife still alive? Did he have children? Do they pass away? What about any relatives? I mean, who was this guy? Was he a writer? Was he a doctor? Did he leave any hard evidence about his existence, What kind of life did he live? Was he a nice person? I'm assuming. All of this stuff's going through my head.
And I thought to myself, you know, there's a possible world in which James didn't live that loud of a life. Could have been a really good life. But maybe he didn't write in a journal or maybe he wasn't on a radio show or maybe he wasn't a politician.
And really, the only thing holding his memory were his family and friends and the people who loved him. But then in that possible world, if that's the case, like most of us, as time marches on and as people get older and die and move away and time keeps going and going and going... It's plausible there could be a world where James Park is forgotten. Who would remember him? You know, thousands of years in the future. What about this guy? You know? And I thought to myself, as I'm standing on this bike trail. Looking out at nature, I thought maybe that's why I'm doing this storytelling podcast. I mean, subconsciously, you know, maybe there's a lot of other reasons, too. Good reasons. You know, noble reasons, I believe, but maybe another reason is because subconsciously, I don't want to be forgotten.
And that's not a crazy thing, I mean, the cavemen and the Egyptians and human beings stretching all the way into our past, they're writing on walls, you know, they're carving out symbols to communicate, not just to themselves. I really believe this. They're communicating for a future generation of people and saying: We were here. We actually existed. We mattered. And at the time, they didn't have the kind of technology or things to kind of make it permanent besides these drawings. Right. But even we look at those, we don't know who the people were, so to speak, the personalities, the choices that they made, the people that they love, the reasons why they did things good and bad. Where does that go? You know? And so, as I'm telling you this story right now, I recognize, you know, this is going to be archived and maybe one day way down in the future, someone will hear this and they won't know who I am. They'll just hear my stories. And that's all, at least in this world, that will remain.
You know, this bike path is about 15 minutes south of our house. And we live in a really interesting area. We're the last suburban exit south of Cleveland. And if you go north, 20 minutes of where I live, you can be in an ultra urban area. And if you can go south 20 minutes, you're in the middle of nowhere. Where all that's left is just the wind and trees and farm, maybe a farmer way out in the distance and silence. And as I've gotten older, I've tended to gravitate more towards the rural area. And that's why I kept going back to this bike path and that's why I'm standing there. And I thought to myself, maybe I should just be more like nature. And resigned to the fact that we come and go like the rivers and the crops and the animals and the trees in and out of existence, not pushing back and where memory is a luxury. But I'm a person, you know, I'm a human, and so I'm going to push back and I have to say that I think they did James Park a service because they made a modest monument for him. And I'm talking about him right now, eliciting a possible memory of who he was without really even knowing the guy. And I can tell you this. That James Park had people in his life that loved him enough to make a park bench and put his name on it, and to provide a place for people like me to stop and rest and think about the world. And my place in it.
Every time I ride past this bench now on the bike, whatever direction, I look over at James and his bench. And it's like I'm seeing an old friend. And I'll never forget him.
