For over two weeks from the middle of December through the first few days of January, I parked my car in front of my house, in Oak Park, on the public street. Not much happened.
That’s right: for over two weeks, I parked my car in front of where I live, on a public thoroughfare, and really, it just sat there, not bothering anything or anyone. Nobody was hurt, nothing was damaged. None of my neighbors seemed to have a problem with my car, silent, unobtrusive, parked idly. At least, no one knocked on my door and asked me why my car was parked overnight.
Let us count the ways, and the things, my car didn’t cause a problem with, or create undue harm. It didn’t steal another car’s catalytic converter (my car is electric, it has no use for such devices, nor can it sell the minerals within). My car did not shoplift at Target (though Target is closed overnight, maybe my car wanted to do so), my car did not use the left turn lane or the concrete medians on Roosevelt for a passing lane, as so many other cars (and their drivers) do, and my car did not go off alone and speed down Fillmore at unsafe levels, running every stop sign on the way (as I’ve witnessed other cars do, with seemingly no repercussion).
My car has had nothing to do with seemingly interminable delays of the Pete’s Fresh Market on Madison, though my car is curious why progressive Oak Park continues to bend over backwards for a decidedly non-union grocery store when there are two fine Union stores in Oak Park and another in River Forest. Puzzling, says my car.
Due to my car’s ability to plug into my phone and connect with the internet and run apps on the display screen, it is said I operate a “smart” car. Apparently, my car is so doggone smart it has no opinion on a swimming pool being built, rehabbed, or otherwise not, at OPRF High School. My car told me it has no intention of wading into that fight (ha-ha, isn’t my car punny?).
My car has concerns about property taxes in Oak Park, but is otherwise very content in this village, as am I. But my car wonders, as I do as well, why is it OK to park overnight on the street in front of where I live for two weeks here and there, around this holiday and that, and not always?
Some who have lived in Oak Park far longer than my car and me say the overnight parking ban is rooted in racism. I don’t know enough about the history of OP government to opine on that, but I recently went to village hall and perused the display of past village presidents and discovered there’s enough crackers pictured to fill a case of Premium Saltines, so maybe?
Can someone in Oak Park government explore ending this silly ban? Maybe the residents in fancy north Oak Park (where it seems everyone is auditioning for a Falcon Crest reboot) want to keep it, but I think enough of us down here in the sunny southland below Madison would welcome its removal. So perhaps we can go street by street, or zone by zone, whatever, just get rid of it, or justify its existence, which I don’t think is possible.
My car says we have a lot more things to worry about than where it parks overnight. It is smart. I agree.
Paul Turner is a writer and actor who lives in Oak Park (gladly so).