An Ode to Fraser Park

A thing takes on a new air when one senses finality in it. I’m feeling this now about my surroundings given Anysja and I have decided to move to Alexandria, Virginia. Alexandria is just down the road from us, maybe ten minutes south– but never again will I have the same relationship with Fraser Park.

You see, dear reader, Fraser Park is next to our apartment building in south Arlington. You’d be hard pressed to find much information about it— other than the fact it’s roughly 2 acres with some benches, A-frame picnic tables, and charcoal grills.

Fraser Park is not simply these attributes– it is a place of life and living; for humans, flowers and fungi, robins and crows, cardinals, grackles, mockingbirds, red-winged blackbirds and red-bellied woodpeckers, the bats in the tunnels, the ducks in the stream, the worms underground. I’d like to share vignettes of this special place–some moments and impressions– as a sort of ode to Fraser Park, before I leave it behind.

If a dog were your guide, say Ava or Peanut, on entering through the park’s wooden fence they would direct your attention to Sciurus carolinensis– or, the eastern gray squirrel– who, in turn, sensing their place center-stage, would scurry up a sawtooth oak to eat their nuts out of reach.

As you and the dog focus on the squirrel, however, you’ll fail to notice the nearby snake. The traveling snake isn’t uncommon.s Ava and I have seen several, usually making their way toward Long Branch Creek. The first species I remember was a Dekay’s Brownsnake, then a Northern Watersnake, an Eastern Ratsnake, and finally another Dekay's Brownsnake. Other times there is the ever-attractive dead snake, in which case Ava alerts onlookers by falling and writhing atop the poor creature’s carcass (apparently this is a behavior common to wolves).

If there’s wind in the air then you’ll smell the water of Long Branch Creek. The creek is routed through a tunnel underneath the park and exits at the south-east edge. There is a short waterfall at the tunnel’s mouth, where a dense pack of rocks shelter an unmarked grave. There, the remains of Corvy rest in peace. Corvy was a young crow who suffered the harsh reality of Nature’s way, and who never grew up to fly the skies.

What’s that? The sound of a trumpet! The notes are long, stretching across the park to catch our attention. The player is blowing tunes from a bench on the opposite side. I remember him. The short, paunchy fellow with the long goatee and beret. He’s got a dog, too, a mid-sized terrier of some variety, who lounges beside him in perfect contentment.

There’s someone else I remember– someone I haven’t seen for a long while. The old man with a German accent, colorful style, and easy stride. He would scatter seed for the birds at the base of a black locust tree, then sit on the bench nearest to it, watching them come to feed. Ava– off-leash in her first 6 months– ran up to him at this bench, introducing herself too forcefully, but seemingly out of a likeness for the fellow. After a while he would get up, walk the sidewalk, and continue meandering the neighborhood– just easy-breezy, like there was nothing more pressing for him to do than be there and survey the scene. I do hope he’s okay. I wish I talked to him more.