Best Friends Park - Place of Grit & Character

As we continue with our walks in the great parks of Gwinnett County, today we will hike through Best Friends Park in Norcross.  Is not that a great name for a park?  I can picture good friends sitting under the shade, on a wooden bench, playing checkers or otherwise lazily passing the day.  The park is located in a transition area of the County, as what is referred to as "white flight" has passed along the I-85 corridor and beyond.  Now the place is surrounded by low and middle-income housing, and people of many colors and ethnic persuasions.  Some call it a high-crime area.  Check out the fence and razor wire surrounding the maintenance building! 
It certainly doesn't invoke a warm and fuzzy feeling. 

The park has some fine recreational amenities, including tennis center, basketball court, and a great swimming pool.  While walking through, I noticed the social extremities of the area are alive and well in this place.  Strolling aside the tennis center I viewed expensive cars and lots of white folk, and a police officer who watched me warily.  Then, in a few minutes, I passed around the basketball courts.  Boom boxes blasted loudly from modest vehicles, African Americans ran up and down the courts, and not a policeman in sight.

A walking track meanders around the periphery.  I made four trips in order to get in my three-mile-walk.  And only a slice of the walk passes through the small forest.  However, the whole place emits a sense of character.  For instance, there seems always to be someone of interesting appearance wanting to chat and pet my dog.  This time, it was a friendly young lady with various piercing through her face, who just a moment previously was engaged with her boyfriend in a marathon french kiss.  That's amore! 

Here's some photos and brief comments:

Passing along a little stretch of woods.  Nice, cool, shady.

Knotty Tree.  This fellow has lost several limbs through they years.  Likely, there's a story to tell about storms, winds, termites, and maintenance men with buzzing saws.

Trail passes from cool shade to searing sun.  As soon as I step into the light, I can feel the rush of heat.

Since the park is so small, I walked past the tennis courts and along an adjacent trail not really part of the official area.  It led to a broken fence, with apartments on the other side.  Why would they build this fence to keep the apartment residents out?  Good for them to refuse to be fenced in.

Big Dog, big rock!  This boulder was conveniently located at a great rest spot, and it beckoned for me to have a seat.  Unfortunately, it also beckoned Big Dog to deposit a liquid specimen.  Notice how the graffiti has been painstakingly removed?  Likely, this stone has lots of stories to tell, too.