Theme Thursday - Park

I've showed you so much of Ballard Park that I thought featuring it for the Thursday theme of "Park" would be overkill. Instead I thought I'd show you some of the other parks I frequent in Newport.

Battery Park overlooks the upper harbor in the Point section of Newport. It's a pleasant place that has a cool breeze blowing even on the hottest days of Summer. When I first moved to Newport in 1974 I lived just up the street and would come here to watch the sun set behind the Newport Bridge and watch the lights on the bridge turn on. I often had long conversations with a nun from the Carmelite chapter house that used to be across the street from the park; she was there for the same reason I was. The Carmelites are gone now, and the nun I talked to was verging on ancient in 1974, so I'm sure she's long gone too.

Touro Park on Bellevue Ave. is another one I hang out in frequently. You've seen it on this blog before, at Cherry Blossom time and showing pictures of the Old Stone Tower in all seasons. Since this is atop the highest hill in downtown Newport, there's always a pleasant breeze here, as well as benches under shady trees, so it's a nice place to hang out. A note on this photo: I took this on April 27 of this year. I took the identical shot on May 9 of last year. That really drove home to me how early everything's been blooming this year - about 2 or 3 weeks - due to an unusually warm Spring and early Summer.

Rovensky Park is at the opposite end of Bellevue Ave., just south of the famous 19th Century "summer cottage" mansions of the robber barons. In fact the park is owned and maintained by the same organization that has restored and runs those mansions now as museums - the Preservation Society of Newport County. Rovensky Park serves as a sort of arboretum; it's full of a wide variety of trees from around the world, all labeled and identified for the education of visitors who seek it's shaded paths and comfortable benches. The ocean is not far away both to the east and to the south, so there's also usually a pleasant breeze here, too. [Note: If I seem to be obsessed with shade and cool breezes in this post, it's because we're undergoing a looooong stretch of heat and high humidity; cool ocean breezes and shade have become objects of much fervid longing these days!]

Music videos time! And we get to join Mr. Peabody and Sherman and climb into the Way Back Machine to travel back to the '60s, when there were some really groovy songs about parks. The first is especially apropos, as it involves some local talent who got internationally famous. Yup, I'm talking about the Cowsills, and they were indeed from Newport. And "The Rain, the Park, and Other Things" (also known as "The Flower Girl") was their first hit in 1967. And here it is, with an appropriately psychedelic visual to go with it.

Speaking of psychedelia, here's a tune you had to be stoned or tripping to really enjoy, written by Jimmy Webb and a huge hit for Richard Harris in 1968 - "MacArthur Park". Yes, the cake is still melting in the rain.

And last but not least, another bit of psychedelia from 1967, all about getting high in the park and seeing beautiful, dreamy visions - Small Faces and "Itchycoo Park". "What did you do there? I got high, yeah!" Oh my, another song we had to hide from our parents! Enjoy!

Photos & text © 2008 & 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

PS - Check out the new blog on the block. Citizen K has started a new blog called 365 Days of Emmylou Harris, featuring photos and music videos of, you guessed it, Emmylou Harris. I'll be contributing to this as well (although my first posts won't be debuting until next week). K and I have a mutual obsession with Miz Emmylou and her music, and we figured this would be a good outlet for it; it was either that or jail time for stalking, and this just seemed safer!