Eleanor B. Garfield Park, Greater Cleveland

August 25 2007, Eleanor B. Garfield Park, Greater Cleveland

This is a community park with picnic facilities, playgrounds, soccer and baseball fields, and a two-acre pond. I simply saw the sign on the road and turned in to take a look. The park is active with games and picnickers. When I arrive there is only one angler. I walk up to him and ask if he’s done any good. “A couple of catfish and some bluegill.” Then I identify myself and ask if I can photograph and interview him. “No, I don’t think I’m interested.” Then as I walk back to my car to get my fishing rod, he reels in his rod, gets into his car, and leaves.
I immediately see a big fish swirl. Then another. During my first few minutes here I will mistake some shoreline swirls for bass, and then I will learn that they are carp. They are all carp. Dozens of carp, hundreds of carp – maybe thousands. They’re everywhere, all at least two or three pounds, some much larger. They are out in the middle and they are right up against the bank in water so shallow that an inch of their back sticks out of the water.
I will fish the pond hard for 90 minutes, walk the entire path around it, throw several types of lures, but will never see a bass or get a bass bite. Finally, at the pond’s headwaters where the little clear stream (Newell Creek – a tributary of the Chagrin River) enters I will catch a four-inch warmouth on a four-inch finesse worm. But that’s it.
There are some lines and bobbers in trees, so I know that others fish here. But the carp are so numerous that they’re bound to crowd everything else out. On one flat I count more than 50 carp so shallow that I can see them.
The grounds and woods surrounding the pond are pretty, and it’s a nice nature-walk around it. There are purple and yellow wildflowers as tall as my chest, Queen Anne’s Lace, lavender dandelions, little yellow snapdragons, blue daisies. There are bright blue dragonflies and pumpkin-rust dragonflies. And there are mallards and Canada geese everywhere.
I did ask that one angler if there are bass in the pond, and he said yes. But he was live-worm fishing for non-bass.
There are bushes with blue berries, bushes with red berries, and oaks with acorns as big as walnuts. And crabapple trees: one with deep red fruit that falls when I shake the branches. I eat a couple – tartly delicious. And there are deer prints on the muddy sections of the shore.
The signature landmark of this pond is an old nearly-dead willow trunk with the girth of a rhinoceros and gnarly bark that mimics that da Vinci drawing of an old man. The tree stands on the back side of the pond where the path leads through and under thick woods.
I eventually give up on the fish and my casts become hopeless efforts. I listen to the loudspeaker for the baseball game. Runners on second and third and batter up. I peer through the woods and see the field. The pitcher is tall and lanky and the batter is short and scrawny. Two outs. It’s up to the batter to try to extend the inning. First pitch: SQUEEZE PLAY! He bunts as the runner from third sprints home! The dusty slide. . and . . . he’s . . . foul ball! The bunt rolled foul just as the runner slid into home. Second pitch: a stinger to short! The shortstop makes the long throw to first, in the dirt, gets away, and one runner scores! The other runner gets caught in a rundown and gets tagged out. One run in, but the inning’s over.
Far more exciting than my fish-catching abilities.
As I leave and walk across a little meadow to my car I see a huge squirrel. I’ve seen big fox squirrels back in Tennessee, but this thing is really big. And he’s sort of ambling on all fours like a bear. He has caramel brown fur and one of the longest tails – also caramel – that I’ve ever seen. He stops and looks at me. He’s between me and my car. I continue towards him. He doesn’t move. Finally at six feet I stop. His eyes are riveted onto mine. A stare-down showdown between me and a squirrel. I am a bit concerned. But my stare outduels his, and he scampers up a nearby tree.