Gnome Park
by Joseph Sipocz
It was very late in the evening when my friends and I first noticed Gnome Park. We were all packed in a cream colored Toronado driving East on Mishawaka Avenue, going from one bar to another. A female voice shrieked from the back, ”It looks like gnomes live there! Stop! Stop!”
My friend Dan was driving, as he usually did, and he pulled over to a side street. We all piled out of the car and shot across the road to the park. Giddy, we ran up and down the stone lined pathways past the gnome’s house and down the stone stairways.
After a quick reconnoiter to search for the gnomes, we settled down by the bank to drink a few beverages that were legal for some of us, and hung out by the slow moving river. We were down the hill so we could hang out unobserved. Perfect!
Gnome Park became a favorite destination. We found the park up topside absolutely suitable for hide-and-go-seek. In the park there is a large Civil War memorial that isn’t especially legible in the dark and a grand bandshell. Mostly, though, we spent our time down by the river.
Battell Park, I later discovered, has been a park forever. Workers built the distinctive rock gardens, pathways, and walls in the 1930s as part of the Works Project Administration, as a make-work project during the Great Depression. Thank you, WPA. ‘Make work’ has a negative connotation, but this, to me, was essential infrastructure spending. It was and is such a joyful park. The ‘gnome’s house’ hides a pump for the water feature. The stonework is distinctive and extensive. It is listed on the National Register.
According to the signage, the park closed at dark, but no one ever bothered us there. In fact, we kind of felt it was our place to gather. We were old enough to not worry about a parental curfew, but young enough to not have our own houses to hang out in. Gnome Park was our park. We weren’t always alone, as we could occasionally see couples walking together down the stone steps. We didn’t usually acknowledge them and they ignored us, so we were happy to share our secret world.
Down by the river, there was a bit more bank than there is now. We had room for a group of four to six friends. Across the river it was a blank. I was thinking that the remains of the Ball Band factory were over there, but I now see it is Kamm’s Island Park. There was nothing ever happening there, either. It could have been the dark side of the moon for all I cared. Our spot was dark. Dark for dark business, we thought. The elegant stone walks, stairs, and walls by the lazy flowing river felt perfect. The night sky in the city was usually starless, and we felt like we were miles away from civilization.
We made small talk and small plans. We once stayed up past 2 a.m. to watch a lunar eclipse in the park. My friend Kevin was an Eagle Scout, so he would often build a small campfire. A modest fire by the river on a quiet warm evening was a perfect setting for storytelling. Kevin was a poet, and his works were long and atmospheric, with a contemplative Tolkien feel. We all loved them. I usually told my stock of preteen jokes. Ask me about the Singing Toilet sometime. Kevin’s hero in his poems was Subeye, his idealized subconscious self. Or maybe Sub-I. This was storytelling in the ancient oral tradition, after all. In one story, Subeye finds that his girlfriend was pregnant with twins. One, he said, and he’d have to leave the country. Two, he definitely had to go off-planet.
In those days we had time but no money. It was common for us to share an eight-pack of Little Kings between five friends. Who got the spares? Dan was always one and done; a perfect designated driver. We had a secret word - rosebud - in case the conversation got too serious. We were young and idealistic, so, of course, it sometimes did. We had our small circle of friends. Once we found careers, spouses, and/or kids, we stopped going to Gnome Park together.
I still love Battell Park and the stone steps to the river. I even go there with my kids from time to time. It’s a part of the wonderfully extensive series of walks alongside the river that gives our city its name, and it’s often busy with joggers. I still think of the park being as mystical as Stonehenge. We never found the gnomes, but as far as I am concerned they are still hiding there.
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About the Author
​Joseph Sipocz has been coming to SJCPL since 1975 when he was a Sophomore at LaSalle High School, and has worked here since 1993. He has worked in a number of library departments, and is currently set up at River Park Branch. He enjoys reading the Saturday Night Stories for the Library’s social media since the beginning of the COVID lockdown. He’s been able to read from his favorite authors including Edgar Allan Poe, Hunter S. Thompson, Neil Gaiman, and Kurt Vonnegut, many of which he first read as a library bound teenager.
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