The new bike and jogging path is open. I’ve yet to see foxes or any wildlife on it, just birds. The animals are there, I’ve seen them in the past, just venturing into the woods or walking the streets nearby; raccoon, ducks, an occasional heron, snakes, many deer, even a rooster, who lives in the woods and feeds at the dish a neighborhood resident puts in her driveway.
About 75 yards into the trail, there is an intriguing moss pond down a steep slope. A lady who was standing at the edge of the slope with her husband told me the moss is called ‘duck grass’. The pond doesn’t seem to flow anywhere, and no water seems to flow in. It just stands there, stagnant, bright, and green.
A few days later, I came back to the same spot with some friends and one of them pointed out a couple of turtles sloshing around at the bottom of the slope, a few feet into the pond. I got close to the edge, pushed the end of my cane into the clay mud to steady myself, and enjoyed the view. I wished a lake or a stream flowed into the woods instead of the river. I’d like to fish there. Fishing the Chicago River, which I did with my son when he was five, can be a crap shoot.
Lore has it, people have fished bodies or parts out of there, car accessories, clothes… One of the neighbors, who told me Al Capone once kept a couple of houses in Forest Glen – one a hideout and the other allegedly housed the world’s oldest trade – said, not too long ago somebody hooked a beer bottle that dated from the time Mayor Daley made his infamous, and at best, overly optimistic statement about using the river as a recreational resource.