Opinion : Reading my mind: Neighbors

Saturday morning I woke up to see that some idiot, and I say that kindly, set fire to Riverside Park and did thousands of dollars of other damage in the area. As I drove to the park with my granddaughter, we walked around the structure as I took pictures. "Who is the bad people that burned my green park up so I can't play?" As the day wore on she had more questions. "Is it a boy or a girl? That's not very nice." Out of the mouths of babes.

As Mayor Maynard, City Administrator Ward, and Parks and Rec Director Boggess all looked on, the expected comments were made. But the comments that surprised me the most came from Matt Boggess. "We'll just fence this off here and..." he had gone from the shock of seeing it and right to planning, again. I was still looking at all the damage and trying to wrap my head around it and he was already on to fixing it.

Then the silly guy decides that he'd open the Splash Pad two weeks early so that the kids have something to do.Parks and Recreation in Vinton dreams and then they make the dreams come true. Parks and Rec have a nightmare situation and as soon as they wake in the morning, they start dreaming again.

This crew is full of hard-working men and women who make things happen. They have a desire to keep kids happy in Vinton and when the kids are happy, so are the parents.

I started the day out feeling angry. After seeing the community made up of our friends and neighbors join together in yet another rough patch for our town, I began to smile. We are Vinton. When something bad happens, we take it in, then roll up our sleeves and deal with it. That doesn't mean that we aren't angry, there's plenty of that to go around. This just means that we will join forces to put our little town back together. Granted, some of us will have to work harder to make that happen again, but I know that at the slightest hint that there is help needed, there will be people showing up to help.

A special thank you to our dear firefighters who were trying to get a good night's sleep, thanks for jumping out of bed to stop the damage from spreading.

Thank you to our police department who also responded and spent most of the night/morning at the scene.

Thank you to our very awesome Parks and Recreation Department for giving us the great spaces to enjoy, and for putting them back together when someone breaks them.

To the person or persons responsible for this damage...