In Fargo-Moorhead most of us don't think of the banks of the Red River of the North as a place of respite from the cares of life, a place for dads and kids to have fun, or a place adventurers choose for honing their skills; we certainly don't think of the river as a showcase for racial and ethnic diversity. Truth be told, we don't think of the Red River much at all. But we should.
On an evening last week with the sun shining and the breeze, soft, I took a bike ride through Lindenwood Park, along the river to Dike East, up and over Dike West and into Island Park before returning home. What I saw was a testimony to the commonality -- the democracy, really -- of our very own stretch of the Red River.
We're more accustomed to thinking that commonality along the river can be summed up with one thought: We drink the water. Yessirree, it's brown and turbid and looks about as fine for quenching thirst as a mud puddle. Yet, through the miracle of water treatment, that roily brew comes out our taps as crystal-clear as a high-mountain stream. But this past week, another kind of commonality was in evidence.
Oh, there were the usual softball players on the Lindenwood fields and children on the playground swings and slides; campers were camping and picnickers were picnicking. The smell of brats was everywhere. The bike trail was busy, too, with bicyclists, joggers, walkers and roller-bladers. Along the path, a young couple with their bikes half-hidden in the trees, shared a water bottle, bending toward one another as if magnetically pulled.
Each tableau I saw as I rode along was enjoyable, and it occurred to me that had I been riding my bike on a summer night in 1975 or 1985 things might have looked much the same. When I reached the dam and dike area, however, the scenes took on a new dimension, and I stopped for a moment, observing various individual vignettes juxtaposed with one another. It was as if the breeze were whispering in my ear, "Something important is happening here; don't miss it."
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Two older white women, wrinkled and gray-haired, sat across from one another at a table in the shade, talking and looking at the water. Perhaps they came by car to sit and relax, or perhaps they walked from an apartment nearby. A young Hispanic mother and three children scrambled down onto the rocks flanking the dam, rocks safely part of the shore but close enough to the water to make the spot exciting. A young father, a big man whose great-great grandparents probably emigrated from Norway over a 100 years ago, and his two freckle-faced children with bucket and fishing poles came towards me. "I caught a catfish," the beaming girl said. Her brother told me he'd caught two fish, to which their dad added that one was a carp. Then all three got into their pick-up and drove off.
I watched a helmeted kayaker practicing his skills, moving into the edges of the current coming off the dam and working with its force as it carried him along. Four young men, probably Somalian, fished together, and a middle-aged man and his father (Bosnian?) sat in the parking lot in serious conversation speaking a language I couldn't identify.
Back on my bike and across the dike, I found that the many basketball courts on the other side were full, and again I was struck by the racial and ethnic diversity -- African-American, American Indian, Vietnamese, Hispanic, Eastern European -- a whole lot of sweating young people having fun.
A remark Mayor Bruce Furness made in an interview about the extensive Main Avenue Bridge project came to mind. He said that it's time to stop looking at the river as a "liability" (flooding, etc.) and to see it as a center of community life instead. Given what I saw along the river last week, it shouldn't be too hard to make that a done deal.
Ahlin teaches English as an adjunct faculty member at Minnesota State University Moorhead and is a regular contributor to The Forum's commentary pages. E-mail ajane@qwest.net
