• "Great Day of Service" AKA "Oh My Aching Back!"

I live near Windsong Park and I rode my bike down there to avoid having another car on the street. I got my name tag, and my wrist band and joined group 4 (which really didn't exist) so I took the role of 'utility player'. It didn't take long before I saw that we could use the aid of my wheelbarrow. I was able to get city manager, Gary Nordquist, to give me a ride in his truck to go pick it up. Thanks Gary.

Now, I could sit here and delineate the things that were less than optimum... so let's have at it.

• Plants that weren't marked. 

(sorry, I don't know most of those obscure plants, and especially not by their botanical names)

• Most of the volunteers were too old for the job 

(I sure know that I was)

• Most of us had no idea where to place the plants

 (I never was very good at mind reading)

• As was predicted, the ground was rock hard

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Now let me report the things I saw that were positive.

• People coming together for the betterment of our community

 I had a chance to meet many people from the area. Many that I'd interacted with on FaceBook, but hadn't yet had a chance to meet and say hello to.

• Elected and appointed city officials getting their hands dirty

Bobby Swann and Tim Walker manning the post-hole digger

I can only imagine how sore Wildomar's mayor must be after he was manning the post-hole digger as long as he was. Imagine a mayor like LA's former guy, Tony Villar, errr.... I mean Antonio Villlaraigosa at such a thing. He'd have done nothing more than be there for a photo op.  

Mayor Walker and other volunteers

Tim Walker was doing hard work, and had he not taken the initiative to get the post-hole digger, nearly nothing could have been done at Windsong Park.

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  Later in the day I drove by the other parks.  

If you were expecting Cinderella's fairy godmother to wave her magic wand and restore the parks to how they were before they were closed, once the "Day of Service" was concluded... you probably have a backyard full of Brooklyn Bridges too. More work will need to be done... a lot more work.

It was a good step forward for the parks, and I'm sure that those that participated —sore as they/we were afterward, are richer for the experience. 

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I nearly forgot to mention

I can't speak for the other two locations, but at Windsong I didn't see any bibles, hymnals, baptismal fonts or anything that looked remotely religious there. I guess I can put my garlic back in the pantry for another day.