Becky Pugsley is walking Sophie, the big-eared schnauzer, through her Tierra Park neighborhood.
I’m tagging along.
It’s warm Friday morning, already muggy on the sunny side of the street.
Not far from the townhouse on Stephanos Drive, where Becky lives with her husband, Bill, we pass a pink-and-white Stingray leaning against a light pole, decorated with sunflowers, an artificial chrysanthemum poking out of the rear spokes.
It's not a shrine, Becky says.
It’s just Marcia, her artistic neighbor, making things pretty.
We walk another block, Sophie leading the way. We cross into the shade and pass a pair of giant fiberglass hands rooted in a front yard.
Becky is curious about those, part of a Lincoln art project auctioned off for charity.
People are also reading…
“I need to find out what that’s about.â€
The retired administrative assistant is curious about a lot of things.
She’s a natural-born noticer, and during the pandemic, on these long daily walks, she’s been noticing and wondering.
She wrote to me in June. She told me she and Bill have lived in Tierra Park for the last three years.
“I’ve recently started walking on the beautiful trails in our neighborhood,†her letter began.
“At the beginning of the trail leading south … is this piece of sidewalk that says ‘Gary N Christie.’ Who knows who wrote it and what if anything ever became of the couple? I’m interested.â€
She’d heard stories about a young boy who died tragically in the neighborhood years ago, she wrote. “His parents put in playground equipment in Tierra Park, but I don’t know the details.â€
The letter continued, a tribute to the trails and the trees and her friendly section of the city just east of 27th Street and Nebraska 2.
They have a neighbor who flies a POW flag, she wrote. “Was he a POW?â€
“Beal Slough is right behind our townhouse," she wrote.
Why a slough? Why not a stream? A creek?
“And who was Beal?â€
Her letter made me wonder, too.
I nearly drowned in Beal Slough after a spring rainstorm when I was in junior high, clinging to a tree while the water roared past.
My kids loved the Tierra Park playground and all those bike-riding trails near the slough.
I was intrigued by those names etched in the sidewalk. Where were Gary and Christie now? Was there still an “N†between their names? Forever love etched in the concrete?
I’ve been noticing new things during this strange pandemic time, working from home and heading out the front door to exercise instead of driving to the gym.
We all have.
I know, because I asked around and heard about the walkers and the dogs, the foxes and the groundhogs. The many bike riders. The noisy birds. All the delivery trucks. The neighbors checking on neighbors. The parked cars with nowhere to go. Discarded masks in the street.
How quiet it was in the beginning. How loud the bees were. The bustle of home improvement — decks, porches, driveways, gardens, painting.
The darker side, too. Kids not in school and not at home learning. Drug deals on the street. Families at the curb, crying. Long lines at food distributions.
People noticed and wondered. Were those kids learning? Were families being evicted? Were the birds always this loud? Were the flowers always this showy?
Had they never noticed the slow change of the seasons? The shadows and light in their living rooms? The skateboarders? The sky?
Becky and Sophie noticed, too. “Walkers, bikers, strollers, kids on skateboards and skates, dogs — it is wonderful.â€
On our Friday walk, we step over 'Gary N Christie' on a trail heading east between two split-level houses.
After Becky’s email showed up, I’d tried to find the couple who’d cemented their names in wet concrete, checking the assessor’s site for a couple by that name. No Gary. No Christie.
I’d tried to track down the Beal behind Beal Slough — so named since the 1880s — but no one knew. Not even city historian Ed Zimmer.
A farmer, he imagined. A farmer named Beal with a little creek that ran through his Lancaster County property.
And I’d tried to find the little boy Becky heard neighbors talk about — the boy who died and was memorialized in a Tierra playground — but the city’s parks department didn’t have a record.
By the late August day I came to walk, Becky had found a neighborhood newsletter and, later, I found the newspaper archives to fill in the rest.
Brendan Hill was 6. A sweet boy who loved to play outside. A little kid who loved his neighbor Tom and wanted to be called Tom, too. A first grader at Maude Rousseau Elementary School. The son of Dave and Donna Hill. A brother to Katie and Brian.
He died on Sept. 28, 1987, in an accident as he played.
“After his passing, the Topaz neighbors donated the equipment and the plaque,†the Tierra newsletter said. “They all took the loss with a lot of sadness and were so kind to the family at that time.â€
I found the red-metal play structures in a wide commons area. A tall slide. A wide swing set. A climbing gym shaped like a car with a plaque on the side: “In Memory of Brendan D. Hill. Born in Korea, Loved in the U.S.A.â€
From “the Topaz Court Families.â€
Dozer Park is not an official city park, but it’s a lovely place.
I’d parked on Topaz Court and on the trek back to my car, I thought about those parents and those neighbors and Becky Pugsley on her walks with Sophie and of all the places in Lincoln where memories live.
And where we can find them if we take the time to wonder.