Prospect Park Mysteries

No mystery about the fact that it's a gorgeous day, park was surprisingly full for a weekday (course it is a school vacation week) and mostly looking good. Early morning pickup soccer has begun again at the Parade grounds, daffodils are sprouting all over, and a red-winged blackbird was singing joyfully from a treetop. I got pictures, but I need to work on being a better a photographer. I used to use a Pentax - very simple, had to learn to adjust F-stops and focal points. I finally did, and then the world went digital. I now have a digital that apparently do everything, if I could figure out how. It's coming along, but it's a slow process.


First mystery: the candle. We came upon a candle burning in a can with a tin foil chimney. No one around. Kids? Worship? Homeless person's stove? [no - no food inside the tin foil] We blew out the candle - unattended candles amongst leaves and phragmites are very scary. Is this how the 2 phragmite fires started? there was a little pile of yellow wax about 6 inches away, so this wasn't the first time.

Second mystery: the lake and the swans. More about the poor deceased swan. There were articles in the Post and the Brooklyn Paper, and the News may have something soon, but there's more to the story. So, the swan (a female, but known as John Boy by her fans) was very still next to the lake and taken away to a Wildlife Restoration Center in Nassau County. Apparently, the Center was never told 1) where the swan came from, or 2) that there had been about 5 other dead animals in the same location over a 3 day period. So no vet was ever called, the poor thing died, the death attributed to "swan on swan fighting. No necropsy (animal autopsy) was done. Then the lake was partly drained and refilled, so any evidence of some kind of poisoning would be gone. It is all very weird. I can only attribute this to that "Don't panic the public" thinking or a fear of copycats.

It is exactly this kind of behavior that leads to conspiracy theories - the black helicopter people and so on. I have to say that I think there are some conspiracies - No one will ever convince me that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. My problem with conspiracies is that rely on too much intelligence and perfect timing. They work great in movies and TV because everything happens
according to script. Real life doesn't work like that. In "Law and Order" the prints on the cigarette butt by the body invariably belong to the killer. If only that were true in real life.

Real life is much more like Guy Fawkes. In 1605 he tried to blow up the English Parliament. So of course he told his friend not to go to work at Parliament that day. So he was caught, and now every year on Nov. 5 the English celebrate Parliament NOT being blown up with fireworks, bonfires, burning dummies, and other such communal mayhem.

The point being: if people are being lied to, they will assume the worst, and why shouldn't they?????

Enough ranting. Still walking slowly. Took my hiking trekking poles today - don't know if it's better or worse. Nice to have something to lean on, but I tend to walk faster.