@wayne,
canadian folk singer bob snider has a great tune about the death of the meadow
Parkette
When I was a kid, I found a
robin's egg and hid it on a
timber in an old abandoned shack
that was sitting in a field
full of raspberry bushes
with a crab apple tree around the back.
And a stream going by
at the bottom of a hill
with a rock in the middle
and if you sat still
You could see the minnows swimming
from an overhanging limb
you could listen to the heat bug trill.
And early every day
all my friends and I would play
digging holes and finding gold
among the rocks.
And looking for salamanders,
and eating all the berries,
and rolling down the hill in a box.
Until on day they came with their machinery
and dozed down the shack
and hacked up the greenery
and stuffed the steam in a concrete pipe
and leveled the hill away.
And then they built a couple of mounds,
to make it look round,
and brought in loads of sod.
And planted a row of tress
that came up to our knees;
without a speck of shade it looked so odd.
And there were no more dragon flies
and no cray fishin;
and they called it a Parkette
after a politician
And put up a sign
saying no ball playing
and nobody ever went there anymore.
