Back in the Day

The duck pond by my old house still holds a feeling of adventure and fun as well as calmness that I have never experienced anywhere else. It has the clearest water and trees that have grown just perfect for climbing. When I was younger I would climb these trees, trying to get as high as I could before getting scared and returning to the ground. Then there were days when I would climb to a spot in my favorite tree; it leaned out over the water just right. From here I could stare at my reflection in the perfect water, look at my face with a beautiful background and not have a care in the world. For some reason I could always go to that spot, sit in that tree and be as far away from all the problems I had in my life at twelve years of age.

The duck pond was originally dug in 1905 when the town of Chester was just beginning, by the Great Northern Railroad to be used as a water stop. There are still rocks from the old railroad tracks surrounding the East Side of the pond, but it is no longer used for anything except growing fish and minnows. Even so, my brother Levi and I spent countless days adventuring around there. Our days always began with Levi sprinting out the door and me right behind yelling for him to wait as he darted through the backyard. Levi and I were only one year apart, so it seemed natural for us to be spending our summers together. This was the way summer began for us, early mornings and late nights- well as late as they can get when you're five and six years old.

The north side of the tracks held lots of entertaining things to do: running through the sprinkler, games of hide and seek all over the neighborhood, and taking the occasional day off to spend at the pool. We were able to keep ourselves entertained with these activities but there was one summer when my friends Damon, Dusty, Derek, Devon, my brother and I had something special planned. No longer would we be playing our simple games of war, tag, and baseball in the Lalum's backyard or having meaningless sleep-overs out in tents. This particular summer we had a plan. Levi and I would get up really early in the morning and do chores, and then before we even had time to swallow our food we were out the door and headed straight for the duck pond.

The time we would spend together, all the jokes that we told, and how everyone seemed to have this same dream in their heads made the duck pond my favorite place. We began construction on this soon to be "fortress" the summer I was eleven years old. To me it seemed like the greatest idea in the world, not only did I get to hang out with my older friends everyday; we now had a goal to accomplish together. We spent countless mornings trying to gather up enough wood, nails, rope, and other materials to use at no cost to us. Having a junkyard right down the street from our houses made this all the easier. Gathering things, then carrying them out to the pond, was not an easy job. Trying to lug heavy wooden planks on my back everyday and everyday and having a new set of splinters to dig out of my hands is one of the difficulties I remember well. I also remember the smells of the junkyard; how everything we took had a kind of mystery to it. There was also the chance we could get caught taking this stuff; we didn't exactly have permission to be borrowing it. With me being the youngest, it seemed I was always given the job of finding the long lists of things that we needed for the days' building. I never minded it though; I loved the way everyone treated me if I came back with some treasure that would be very useful to the older boys. It was my job and I was good at it. As the summer moved on my days were always planned and I hated having to go somewhere else; it felt like I was going to miss out on something big or not be around when something needed to be found. If I weren't working on the fort, I was still wandering around the pond looking for that great discovery I knew it was out there just waiting for me in the trees somewhere.

As the summer came to an end we all had to say goodbye to our summertime freedom, but we were able to identify the outlines of our amazing creation. This fort was to be our pride and joy for the next two summers, and by the end of the second summer we had almost finished construction on the actual fort itself. Many days were spent out there with Levi, Devon, Damon, Derek and I all working together. All of our parents must have thought we were building an entire city out there but they didn't question our intentions much. Everyday the six of us, like a little band of engineers, would go around collecting items to put into our materials pile and then head out to the pond.

As the twelfth summer of my life came around, a funny thing happened. For some reason all the big projects we had planned the summer before didn't seem all that important to anyone anymore; all my fellow engineers had found better things to do. I found myself taking my walks out to the fort alone, trying to carry on the dreams of finishing our great fortress. Days that seemed to fly by now seemed to drag on and even though the fort was kind of a sad place for me to be; I found myself spending more and more time there. Levi had found new friends and I was no longer a very welcome companion for him anymore. Mom and Dad always seemed to have too many problems of their own to help entertain me, so I spent my days out at the pond wondering, trying to make some sense of a lot of things I didn't understand. I did have other friends, and I would try to bring them out to my little corner of the world, but they all found it a little less interesting than I did.

As the summer passed, and then came to a close, I settled down into another school year. Always with the hopes that the first day of summer would be like those ones I enjoyed so much. Wishful thinking and long walks around the pond trying to find a place that I had not yet fully explored seemed to get me through the tough days. There was something about the pond that gave me this feeling of excitement even though I had been all around the thing at least a hundred times. It seemed like I was the only person in the world that knew how beautiful it all was. The way the trees reflected off the water, and how the ground felt under my feet were feelings I came to enjoy and then grow very comfortable with. Even though our fort was never completed and the dreams we all had were never fulfilled I wouldn't give up the experience of the pond for anything.