When I was about five years old, my mom would put me in little jodhpurs and we would take a short car ride to Calwalder Park. As a child, this park was huge to me. It was magical with dozens of little roads that meandered in all directions through tree lined hills and fields.
Mom would park the car and we would stroll down to a small lake, armed with a plastic bag of stale bread to feed the ducks.  Deer would approach, and Mom would admonish me to remain very still so they wouldn’t hop away.  We would chat with strangers and ride a small merry-go-round on my favorite blue horse.
When I was about eight years old, Mom introduced me to a concrete circular structure with steel wire cages.  Inside of this place were bears- giant, fuzzy brown and black bears of various sizes.  They would bathe in a very small tub of water and twist and turn and drink.  I once watched a man in a green uniform point a hose at them to wash them off.  I thought, at age eight,  that they were enjoying this playful spraying.
At age thirteen, my eighth-grade Catholic school class would take a full day field trip to Calwalder Park.  We would arrive in the morning and listen to the sister’s instructions, and then the chaperons would disperse us to do our own thing. Now, for a thirteen-year-old confined to a uniform in school every day, I felt a sense of freedom in my capris in mid-May with my friends, to boot.
The day was usually glorious.  We would snack under giant oak and maple trees and play and chatter while listening to our transistor radios under weeping willow trees.  I remember meandering to the bear cages and seeing only two brown bears.  Both bears were napping, but they managed to raise their giant heads and stare at me.  I cannot forget the sadness in their eyes.
As my life unfolded and I became engaged in 1975, I persuaded my then fiancé and later husband to take a ride with me through Calwalder Park.  I am nostalgic by temperament; he agreed to a quick tour of the park for old time’s sake.
As we drove through the Calwalder Park near the lake, not a duck nor deer was in sight. The circular concrete structure was still there- but it was different; there were curse words and gang graffiti symbols defacing the building. The bears were long gone.  The oak trees look less sturdy and there were no more weeping willow trees.
As we cautiously drove our car through the park, it seemed to have shrunk and shrunk away.  The small merry-go-round was gone; the playground was broken and vacant. I was saddened to see this deterioration.  The park was situated slightly outside the city of Trenton, and it certainly appeared abandoned and destroyed, probably the results of several race riots and civil unrest protests in the early 1970’s.
In retrospect,  the park had been a welcome oasis for European immigrants from all countries who settled in the surrounding neighborhoods. I always wondered- where did these immigrants go?  Were their dreams upheld or shattered?
And what happened to those poor, sad bears??