Woodsdale Park turf wars

As a child growing up in Hamilton Ave in the 1970's and 1980's the Woodsdale Park on Bethany Pike across from Woodsdale School was the place to play. Of course there were problems with this, as a child no one knew just who owned the park. The Hamilton/ Hawthorne side thought it was theirs (at that time only one person lived on Park Road by the park) and the Poplar / Maple / Walnut Ave kids thought it was theirs. This of course lead to minor fights and shouting matches as a child no one ever thought of sharing the place! I recall other kids playing football and baseball while me and my friends played in the orange mine run off water and under the bridge on Homestead. As I grew older I would walk the dog there and hang out with friends talking about junior high and highschool scandals and who was dating who and who was doing "bad things" on the pig path late at night. In the late 1990's I came back to find the final and last footbridge long gone and the orange water long gone. I walked my parents dog there only to be yelled at by a woman who screamed " you don't live here you have to leave this park now" That did not sit well and of course I asked the horrid woman with her dog " and just where do you live? and who gives you the right to assign who is and is not allowed in the park? " her reply was simple , she said " I live on Poplar ave and we are the one's permitted to use the park not outsiders" I explained to the woman that my parents lived on Hamilton Ave, she did not find this amusing and stated "those streets don't matter, your snobs over their and are not considered Woodsdale" I glard at her and she left. Not part of Woodsdale? was not the Woods farmhouse in the middle of the Hamilton Ave area? A few weeks later I spotted her in her traffic next to me in her Yellow Chrysler Lebaron convertible and gave her the "snobby Hamilton ave glare that she expected " of course this never swayed me in my pride of
Woodsdale or the honor of being able to use such a splended park! I returned to Woodsdale 2 1/2 years ago purchasing the Etz Mansion. I love this neighborhood !