The long hours of daylight on the path around the Falls this weekend encouraged people to spend time outdoors. Whether it was watching the sunset in the northwest sky over a campfire or sitting on the deck till 9 reading the Sunday paper, people took advantage of the longest days of the year.
A number of little flying creatures also found this to be a great time for extended activity. While the tough winter took a toll on deer herd numbers north of Highway 64, the pools of melting snow provided a breeding ground for a record number of mosquitoes.
Winter weather like we experienced this past year can have a variety of economic impacts. Sales of snow shovels, snow melt salt and similar products went through the roof. Now, sales of mosquito repellent have to be off the charts. Smart production planers at the plants that make these products must have gone to round-the-clock production once they saw the record snow totals month after month.
We are not sure who organizes the swarms of mosquitoes, but whatever preseason drills they used put the team in peak performance condition. With frequent rain, younger recruits are waiting in the wings to take the field. This may go down as “the summer of the great swats.”
In addition to responding to the healthy mosquito population, another form of swatting can also be part of the evening summer scene. The reference in this case is to the extensive summer recreation program in Oconto Falls. At one time, the program used older high school students and college students as paid coaches. Practices and games were scheduled during the day.
Over the years, the program shifted. Parents didn’t appreciate the daytime activities because it was more difficult to get their youngsters to the sessions, and parents could not watch the games without taking off from work.
A second change was made in coaching. Instead of paid youth coaches, the program began to use volunteer adult/parent coaches. As a result, more practices and games took place in the evening. Unfortunately, this caused a major scheduling problem as more and more teams wanted to use the same number of playing fields.
A few ideas for additional fields were discussed. One design was to construct fields on city-owned property on the west side of Oconto Falls on the old landfill. Another idea discussed briefly was to use the old Jefferson School site, including closing a portion of Sherman Street, to join two city park segments. Neither plan got much traction.
The construction of the park in Pleasant View Estates some years ago brought one more field on line to provide some help, but there was need for more relief.
This summer two new fields at Oconto Falls High School were added to the mix. The impact has been quite noticeable. The cars in the parking lots right next to the fields give a good measure of the activity. Several nights this summer, close to 40 cars have been parked in those lots. Clearly, there is good community use of those fields when school is not in session.
This is a great example of the cooperative relationship between the city recreation program and the school district. No doubt this would deepen even further if things come together to relocate the football field and track to the high school site.
If the Aug. 12 referendum is approved, a multi-year process would get under way later this fall to grade the high school site to prepare for the future football field and track. The ground would settle over winter, with additional work the following construction season. Potentially, the first football game could be played on the new field later in the fall of 2015, with the track being used the spring of 2016.
The relocation of those facilities would open up Memorial Field for a redesign that would configure two baseball fields in the space now taken by the current baseball field and the football field/track complex. The preliminary design that had been suggested would put both home plates on the west side of the field, away from Highway 22 and relieving the parking in that area on game nights.
That’s off a bit into the future, but summer evenings will come, when in addition to swatting mosquitoes, fans may watch a future “Bobby Wickman” pitch to a batter who swats a third strike to put a win in the home team column.
Categories
