The Creek.

I grew up in suburbia twenty minutes north of Dallas. My front yard was in a city named Richardson, and my back yard resided in good ole' Garland. My backyard was my barbie dream house. Sure I played inside when I was younger, when I was at friend's houses we would play with barbies or play school. But when we were at my house, you couldn't drag us inside. We had a swing set, slide, hammock, huge trees perfect for climbing, a trampoline, and pool with primo diving ledge. However, the real adventure and fun came beyond the fence.

It was a four foot, black metal fence that held everything in, and kept everything I wanted out. The paint was chipping and it was beginning to lack stability. The door to adventure was old, rusted and virtually impossible to open unless you had the magic touch of an adult. Haley and I would tug at that handle every day one summer until we realized we could just jump the fence. We were in third grade, and once we got over, there was no keeping us away. Somehow, in the middle of suburbia, a thick stretch of land managed to stay populated with huge trees, poison ivy, dead logs, a winding creek, lake, and paths forged by kids before us. We had explored through this land before with our dads when we would go fishing on the dock, but it seemed so much bigger and exciting on our own.

The creek was our summer house. Once you hop the fence, it was a short two minute walk to the bridge that led across the creek, but where most continue forward with the lake as a final destination, we took a sharp right. The ground is all dirt, welcoming your footprints, guiding and misleading explorations. The creek is sunken into the ground, from the path it is probably a solid eight or ten feet under. After following the creek for a little, we would slide down to be creekside. It was shallow for the majority and only a few feet wide in places. Mossy rocks to step across, sand to sink your toes in, leaves for picking, empty water and beer bottles to fill with water, pieces of tile, part of a fence, and rocks to skip. Everybody else's trash that ended up in that small stretch of the creek was our treasure. The smell was a typical stench of dirty water and outside, but to us, it meant more. It meant freedom, creation, imagination, and adventure.

The best part was an old tree, it was our "bedroom". The trunk started up where the path was, but down creekside, where there should have been land that surrounded the roots, it was open air. Over time mother nature managed to push out all of the mud, dirt, rocks, and critters in a six foot area between the bottom of the trunk and where the ground was now to create the best fort a child could ask for. We managed to decorate and furnish it. Where you could easily fall into the creek between two roots, we posted the old fence piece up as a guard. We found an old tire, that became a chair. Golf balls and broken tile went in the bark to add a creative touch. We made ourselves a home.

Despite the threat of bugs, coyotes, bobcats, poison ivy, snakes, and thorn bushes, we would stay down there until the sun set. It was our oasis, where we were free to make up our own world and live whatever life we wanted.