The Price of Fame

By Rodney J. Auth

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / sam74100

My brother was walking the streets of Chicago between meetings when he saw a familiar face coming towards him. He looked. Looked again. And then approached the man.

“Are you Tom Hanks?”

“I am,” said Hanks, looking warily at my brother.

Flustered by meeting Hanks in person and a little off put by his defensive nature, my brother said, “You’re my wife’s favorite actor.”

Hanks just looked at him.

My brother, embarrassed, turned around and walked away—moving in the wrong direction just to put space between him and Hanks.

Later, he told me the story laughing at himself.

“I have no idea why I told him he was my wife’s favorite actor. He probably thought, ‘what about you buddy’?”

I smiled, enjoying the story and laughed along as we started telling other stories of other times we’d been awkward or foolish.

I thought of this encounter when I read through this month’s effort—particularly when I saw the study showing park attendance had grown between 30 and 165 percent across the country since the start of COVID.

We’ve been hearing this from our writers, seeing this in our hometowns, and seeing study after study talking about the impressive growth of park attendance.

But, along with these great numbers comes the whole “loved-to-death” problem. More trash to pick-up. More pedestrian traffic on natural-grass surfaces, leaving muddy trails in their wake. More demands on play space design. More. More. More.

This issue addresses the “more” you’re all experiencing and offers up some great solutions to  better maintain your parks and open spaces as well as information on how to meet the demands of a public who are looking for you to update aging parks and facilities.

It’s a wonderful time to be in the parks and recreation world, but like Tom Hanks, there is a price to this new-found fame. I hope this issue helps you navigate the new world.

Till next month…

Rodney J. Auth

Publisher