Holmes Lake

Kate Nootz
English Writing Assignment

Holmes Lake

I forced the door of my car open against the strong wind gusts and stepped out onto Holmes Lake Park. I found one of the may unoccupied benches and sat down hoping not to get my pants dirty. The lake was made choppy by the strong gusts of wind that were blowing through the park. The leaves on the trees were also blowing violently with the wind. The water was choppy and on one side of the lake the waves even had white caps. The only place that wasn’t affected by the wind was a small cove that was protected by a rocky path leading out onto the lake. The water appeared to be green from far away but some of the waves extending out from the lake were more green than blue. Once I got closer I realized that the water was definitely not blue but a murky green brown. It made me wonder if the lake only appeared to be blue because of a reflection on the sky. In the middle of the lake the sun made a glare which forced your eyes to squint when you looked at it. Watching the water with the waves crashing against each other creates a wave of calmness over you. The water is mesmerizing to watch and hard to take your eyes off, but it is possible to be distracted by the flicker of a tree leaf or a person walking on the path around the lake. After the commotion is over my eyes always reverted back to the lake. On certain parts of the lake there is a narrow beach with thick tan sand. The rest of the lake is protected with tall weeds; many of them are serving as a barrier for the trash which collects in them.
At first Holmes Lake smelled like the great outdoors, trees and grass and some weeds, but every now and then you would get a gust of the potent smell of the lake. The lake doesn’t have such a great and refreshing smell, instead it smells more like algae or fish. You can hear the pats of people’s feet on the gravel path and kids screaming excitedly pleased with the activity they are doing. You can hear the dogs barking as they met each other on the path, or met other people that were unfamiliar to them. In my ears there was always a constant whistle of the wind.
It is strange that a recreation center that is bustling with people doing physical outdoor activities can be so unhealthy. There are people running around the lake or taking their dogs for walks, showing their kids how to fish and make sand castles, or observing the lake hoping the waters will make them calm and enjoying the outdoors. Yet the water is murky and was said to be condemned and you were not supposed to eat any fish that came from it or go swimming in it. It is next to the dog park and they share a stream. After they found many accounts of dead or mutated fish they had to dredge the lake, I remember it to be a very unpleasant smell. Vegetation grew wildly in the lake when it was empty and it looked like a lagre meadow or grassland. The vegetation still grows if the water gets low and many plants grow under water. The vegetation was never affected by the contaminated water but there has seemed to be a decrease of wildlife in the area. I saw only a few squirrels but mostly I saw people’s dogs that were brought there either by car or walked there on a leash.

The tall grass around the lake acts as a barrier for the outside world. People's trast gets collected in the weeds which prevents some of it from going into the lake like things from people picnicking or things that fly into the lake that people were using. The grasses can only block so much. There are parts of the lake that are more vulnerable like the beaches which have no protection from the outside world. It seems that there are things we cannot be protected from, the barriers that we create are not strong enough from the influences of the city. The influences of the city have a negative effect on the park and what it represents.
The park was full of people, some exercising, some fishing or making playing in the sand, some just observing the lake. There were two families fishing. One of the families was a father trying to teach his young sons how to fish, it was apparent that it had only been one of their first times going out because they were not very successful. Their casts were never very far and sometimes just plopped into the lake, but they were praised when one managed to go far. Their lines often got stuck in the lake on the plants growing on the bottom of the lake. There was a mother and her two young children fishing also. They went through the tall weeds to stand on the big white rocks and fish from a different side of the lake as the other family. Each family encountered the same problem with their poles getting snagged on a weed. They would pull their line out of the water only to find a large tangled mass of green weeds instead of the fish they had been hoping for. Each family was unsuccessful in catching a fish.

It is interesting that we refer to Holmes Lake as being a lake. The only thing that you can do on the lake is fish, and when you do fish you are discouraged to eat the fish. There are signs up around the lake that tells you what fish to keep and which to release. There are also signs that prohibit you from the use of sailboats, paddle boats, wind surfing, row boating, canoeing, and using an aquatic cycle. You are also discouraged to swim in the lake. My dad tells me that the lake used to serve a purpose before it became filthy. He said that he used to go swimming in it and you used to be able to use any of the types of boating that are now prohibited. The only thing that you can do on the lake now is go fishing or in the winter you can go ice skating on it if the lake is frozen solid enough. Now Holmes Lake is more of a recreation center with all the volleyball courts, baseball fields, jungle gyms, and picnic tables.
Holmes Lake has a lot of history in Lincoln. It shows you how things have evolved. You used to be able to go fishing and actually eat the fish that you caught. It used to have wildlife, but now because of its location by a busy street that has decreased. The lake has also become unhealthy for people because of car fumes and other pollutants. It used to be just a lake and was surrounded by grasslands, but now we are making better use of it by adding baseball fields, volleyball courts, and a fancy playground. Just like we are expanding Lincoln and extending the city limits Holmes Lake is also adding new things. It is also holding the values of “The Good Life,” that we have in Nebraska by being a recreation center but also trying to keep up with the rest of the nation. Of course expanding comes with a price, and that is very evident with the new limitation because of the polluted lake. Like the waves on the lake mimicked the leaves on the trees Holmes Lake mimics the growth of Lincoln.

Post 6: The Museum of the Odd

Post 6: The Museum of the Odd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipCRFWshMHY

This supposed Museum of the Odd looked more like a burial ground to me. It is where all the toys and figurines sit on shelf after shelf and are hung up on walls being displayed with no purpose. There were gatherings of circus monkeys in a box and skunks in a corner. There wasn’t an inch of this house that wasn’t covered with odd things. The sink housed figurines as well as the stove. Every space was taken by a different collection of motionless creatures. The house was absolutely useless with the exception of housing these collectables.
There were pumpkin faces, each staring at you with a different expression on their orange round faces. Then furry gremlins with their creepy looking eyes and mouth atop a high shelf. There were pictures of poorly drawn kitty’s playing in fields with flowers and flowing grasses. Even the bed was turned into a place to put figures. There were shiny dinosaurs in assortments of green and grey, some with long necks and smooth bodies and others with squatty bodies and spikes on their backs. There were tall horses with long tails and manes in acrylic hair. Their bodies were made from plastic and were mostly painted a brown color with the exception of those that were white and black. The horses were sorted in rows from tallest to shorter. Next to the horses were slender shiny rabbits with tall ears. Some of the rabbits were standing and had clothes on like a pair of overalls.
I find it odd that one chooses to have a museum in a house. They put things of no practicality on top of something like a sink or bed that have practical uses. It seems that these figures are so important to him that nothing else matters. However, it is inevitable to run into something in this museum because the house isn’t big enough to house all of the collectables. Not only are the things being shown in the museum odd but so is the location of the collectables.

Post 5: The Torn Notebook

Post 5: The Torn Notebook

A monument in Lincoln, Nebraska is the torn notebook. It is a prestigious statue in downtown Lincoln that is an amazing landmark for the citizens. At first when you look at the torn notebook it appears to be an abstract object. From afar you cannot exactly tell what it is, but as you get closer you can tell that it is a notebook ripped in half with pages falling out and flying away. When you think of a notebook you think of something small where one gathers their thoughts, there is a small shiny metal spiral on the outside that encompass crisp white sheets of lined paper. The torn notebook is a massive notebook that is all the same color and texture, white and concrete. The condition of the notebook isn’t as pristine as it used to be, now it isn’t as smooth as it once was and it has begun to deteriorate due to the elements. The spiral is bent awkwardly as if someone tried to pry the notebook in half essentially ripping the pages apart. The pages of the notebook that are torn out look like they are in motion, even on the most humid and stagnant day. The words are hard to make out but the ones that I could understand are: barbed wire, falcons atop flagpoles, goose, and wayward winds, to name a few.
This particular sculpture has another meaning to Nebraskans. At first the artists, Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, were going to put up a sculpture of a cornhusker but then decided to visit Nebraska. They found out wonderful things about Nebraska like our crazy windy days and the cranes and they put all those things into their notebook that they sculpted and scattered around downtown Lincoln. Most people think of Nebraska a rural state that doesn’t have much to offer besides corn and other crops, but there are other natural beauties that occur in Nebraska that people are not informed about. It is a state of secret beauty.

Post 4: Memorial Stadium

Post 4: Memorial Stadium

It was a cold Saturday evening in Lincoln, Nebraska when the biggest football game of the year occurred. The Nebraska Huskers played the USC Trojans. The down town streets by the UNL campus were filled with Husker fans. The sea of red was filtering into the game or their tail gate sites. Husker games have always fascinated me because of the loyal fans that the Huskers have. I love to watch them filter in through the tunnel. It is a mass of people wearing the Husker colors of red, white, and black. It shows how involved they are in supporting their team. The Huskers have such great attendance at their games that they were able to afford a new jumbotron T.V. for their stadium.
Memorial Stadium recently had a face lift. Along with the television they also put in new club seats for fans. Although the front of Memorial stadium is new the inside remains the same. There are still the columns that run through to support the stands and the small stair cases with out railings to get you up to a balcony seat. The stands and stairs are painted in red and white, mostly chipping or worn off from so much foot traffic. The night games have the big lights that illuminate the field and the fans decked out in their red apparel. If you look down the rows and rows of fans you can see the turf is a bright green with the stark white lines painted across and the Husker “N” in the middle.
The most important part about Memorial Stadium is the traditions that it holds. Everyone gets so excited for Tunnel Vision where the starting players show on the screen and then at the end the Husker football players burst out of the locker rooms. The crowd screams wildly, you can’t even hear yourself scream it’s just one big roar. The band in out on the field so the football players can weave through them and make their way ot the sidelines. When the Husker fight song is played everyone claps and jumps around and then you wave your hands during a part. The cheerleaders come out and everyone yells Husker Power! Memorial Stadium is a landmark in Lincoln because of the love of the huskers and because of the tradition it holds. When I think of Memorial Stadium I don’t think of a building I think of the excitement of the Husker football season and the sea of red and the loud roar of the crowd when the Huskers play well. I think of the balloons released at the first touchdown and watching them float over the edges of the stadium. When I see Memorial Stadium it’s not a building it’s a monument to the Huskers.

Post 3: Foster Care Board Retains Stitt

Post 3: Foster Care Board Retains Stitt

I read an article about Carol Stitt who is the head of the state’s Foster Care Review Board. The board reviewed her position in a two hour closed door discussion because of allegations from a former employee of the state against Stitt. During the closed door session the discussion was focused on the acceptance or refusal of the recommendations from the state ombudsman’s report to improve agency operations. The allegations on Stitt came from an employee who recently resigned; they claim that Stitt ordered an employee to release confidential information about a foster child. These allegations were true, but the information didn’t get released to the public.
It seems as though the board didn’t care about this allegation because the information was never released, but it doesn’t seem like they took much time to explore what would have happened to that child if the information were released. Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers thinks that Stitt should be fired because of her actions and I agree with him. I do however understand that being the head of foster care would be a demanding job and would put you in many tough situations and perhaps if they had presented more information I would feel differently about the situation.
The meeting did accept the recommendations from the state ombudsman’s report and plan on reviewing and organizing the program. They want to have monthly reports, board and staff protocols for complaints, and review operations and communications. I understand that things need to be reviewed and possibly re-vamped but Carol has been in this position for 24 years and they still don’t have company protocol? It seems that a review of the Foster Care Board was in order.