From the “tis better to light a single candle …” department

We have before-and-after photos of that bench, but it’s so thoroughly tagged in the “before” photo that a even if we blur the tags, it isn’t very usable. So just imagine what it would look like with crude scrawls in black paint. How did the tags get removed? The anonymous West Seattle parent who shared the photo tells the story:

My daughter and I love to walk through Schmitz Park and have picnic lunches in the middle of the park on one of the two wooden benches. My seven year old daughter, looking at the bench we were sitting on, asked me yesterday why people put graffiti on beautiful things. I was stumped for an answer and decided then we would both do something about it. Today we hiked into Schmitz park with an arsenal of hand tools (no electricity) and scrapped and sanded off all of the graffiti on the two beautiful wooden benches in the middle of Schmitz Park. It made us both feel great!

If you see graffiti vandalism in a Seattle park and it’s not something you can handle this way – the Parks Department has a special hotline you can call: 206-684-7587.

miws July 30, 2009 (8:47 pm)

Kudos to you, and your daughter, AnonMom!

What a great example to set for your little one!

Mike

Pigeon Hill July 30, 2009 (9:08 pm)

I agree! Thank you for doing & for teaching.

marty July 30, 2009 (9:18 pm)

That has to be the best example of great parenting I have heard in a long time. Too bad the kids who tagged the bench didn’t have the same advantage your child has.

nice July 30, 2009 (10:14 pm)

Thanks for your service and good job!

k July 30, 2009 (10:18 pm)

Thanks for your fabulous service and the terrific example for your daughter. Good karma will pour down on you both!

SchmitzParkMom July 30, 2009 (11:11 pm)

It was actually a dad, not a mom. It was the same dad who cleaned up the graffiti at Ercolini Park earlier this summer.

WSB July 30, 2009 (11:44 pm)

Sorry, have changed to “parent,” gotta remember not to infer gender on a name (though they asked to be anonymous, the name was in the e-mail) – TR

Jersey Jill July 31, 2009 (9:40 am)

My daughter ask me the samething as we walked past the Statue of Liberty on Alki last weekend. “Why did they have to put graffiti on it mom you can’t even read what it says”? I was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to say. I am so tired of seeing it all over West Seattle. I was always taught to never ever touch somthing that didn’t belong to me. Where has that common courtesy and respect gone in todays’ youth? I guess all we can like the above parent is continue to set good examples for our children and hope that the lost children will someday fall into place.

miws July 31, 2009 (11:24 am)

Thanks for the correction on that, SchmitzParkMom.

So, make that Kudos to AnonDad! ;)

“I was always taught to never ever touch somthing that didn’t belong to me.”

WORD, Jersey Jill!

I just can’t understand the mindset, where people think they have the “right” to mess with other peoples’ stuff. Even if it’s not something as bad as vandalism. *shrugs*

Mike