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Each month, we’ll throw a dart at a map and write about where it lands.

LOCATION: PINEVILLE LAKE PARK 909 Lakeview Rd., Pineville

PINEVILLE LAKE PARK

Townhomes and Turtles

In Pineville, a natural oasis in the shadow of a building boom

SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED A PLACE where nature provides the entertainment, and around noontime on a humid late-summer day, Pineville Lake Park is that place.

The playground, which normally teems with young kids and their moms or babysitters out for a picnic or playtime, is draped in yellow caution tape and canvas barriers due to COVID. But there’s another game to play: Spot the turtles. Dozens live at the lake. They pop their heads from the surface and sun themselves on the rocks at the shore. Nearby, plump geese peck at the grass and waddle toward visitors.

You can’t tell from here, but Pineville, a small town of just more than 9,000 people, is having a growth spurt. Less than a mile away, construction workers nish rows of townhomes, and nearby lots, clear-cut and carpeted with red clay, tell of more houses to come. But the streets that ring the park haven’t changed much. Most homes here were built in the 1950s or a few years later, and the people who live in them tend tidy ower beds in front and hang wash on clotheslines out back.

Nearly every Monday, rain or shine, Pat Donlevy and her son, James, bring their lunches here, walk a loop around the lake, eat under a picnic shelter, and walk the loop again. On this day, they spread out a white lace tablecloth and shu e an oversized deck of playing cards.

“Being here,” Donlevy says, “it just helps you stay positive and look at what God gave us—the beauty of the Earth.” —Cristina Bolling