Suburban mystery

     The Chicago Botanic Garden is a 10 minute drive from our home in the leafy suburban paradise. A tremendous boon that I've written about here many times. Maybe too many, but you get what you pay for.
      It isn't the only stunning natural expanse we have at our disposal. There is one even closer that I seldom write about because ... well, I'm not sure why. The Trail through Time is itself a wonder, with fields of prairie grasses and large oaks, plus a soccer field and a playground and a large oval around a reservoir. It reminds me of the Valemount trail by my parents' old place in Boulder, except for the Techny Tower, looming in the background. If you haven't been inside, find a way — go to one of their occasional concerts. It's like a European cathedral.
     Friday, after an indulgent birthday dinner of a jumbo char kosher hot dog and fries from Little Louie's, eaten in the downtown park — more natural beauty — we walked off our sins on the trail. By the soccer field, I noticed this tree.

    "Is that a balloons?" my wife said.

    We decided it was a ball. Which raised the question of how it got there? A powerful but misdirected kick? An intentional insertion? Did a kid climb the tree? It's really far in there.
     "If I were a kid, I'd be throwing baseballs at that until it came down," my wife said.

     Kids nowadays, no initiative.

     Or heck, maybe they had, maybe an hour had been dedicated trying to get the thing down. Failed attempts to climb the trail. Baseballs thrown in vain. We'll never know. We dedicated less than a minute to the question before moving on.