Wonderful World

Last night, I chose like many others to come out for air in the dusk of a torrid solstice eve; in my case, I chose to stroll through Frances Wisebart Jacobs Park, a little patch of green amid a myriad of apartment and condo complexes south of Leetsdale Drive. There, in a park named for a Jewish philanthropist (Jacobs, a founder of National Jewish Hospital, was known as Colorado’s “Mother of Charity”), this is what I saw: Promenading groups of South Asian women, looking tribal in their summer saris, trailed by dark-eyed children in shorts; chatting African women wearing Erica Badu headwraps; Russians in lawn chairs and picnicking Korean families; rugby players of every stripe, men and women in long black socks, running this way and that in strategic waves to pursue their prize, an elusive oversized football; blond toddlers aimlessly kicking soccer balls; Muslims and Hindus brushing shoulders; ganja-puffing hipsters and fathers guiding teetering kids on bikes with training wheels. There’s nothing like a summer night’s walk to take you away from it all in the space of ten minutes. Try it sometime! —Susan Froyd