How many times have I stood here and listened to time’s echoes?
Most of my life has been lived within ten miles of where I was born. Oh, I’ve traveled some and seen great wonders. There are plenty of miles under my feet.
But it is to here I always return. I’ve never been one to make my wanderings more permanent. I am a creature of here.
I can tell you what used to be here and when that road was built. I’m that guy.
There is a trail near my office. A trail by a creek. Hundreds of people a day leave their offices and apartments to walk or run on that trail, next to that creek. It’s a nice paved trail with trees and grass and sometimes the sound of water.
I remember a time when there wasn’t a trail here and childhood friends and I trespassed through the orchard to find ourselves on a narrow dirt path that would one day see dog walkers, stroller pushers and runners. Back then we 12 year-olds moved quickly to avoid the farmer, who rumor had it, chased young trespassers with a shotgun loaded with rock salt.
Back then the dear path we followed sometimes branched down to the creek where you could dip you hand for a drink of cool water. That was before we learned of what toxins found their way into this paradise of dry grass and fruit trees.
Sometimes when I walk the new trail, I still see those boys on a Saturday afternoon, running from imagined ogres/farmers and stopping to skip stones across the sleepy pools of a dying creek on a summer day. The freedom and joy of those days.
How can I tell you of the day when this young man drove by the orchard and saw the fruit trees being pulled up and hauled away? Progress. As my heart sank and my memories remain in my mind alone. Apartments rose from the ruins of the trees and chain link fences replaced the old rusting broken barbed wire.
For decades local maps held a dotted line that would someday be the “West Valley” freeway. It was to cut across our creek at a place were we once tried to build a rock dam. The water rose faster than we could move rocks and in the end we just threw rocks at the water before mounting out bikes and riding off to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone.
I was walking on the trail under that new freeway and I thought I could see the vague outline of that old rock dam – not too far from where the pillars of the freeway were driven into and below the creek. My past buried under tons of concrete so thousands of cars can add their toxins to the pure air of my youth.
How this place has changed. I’ve changed too. A bit older, a bit fatter and I no longer eat ice cream cones. No longer am I that boy who’d run away from home for a Saturday of fun along the creek.
Now I am just an older office dweller, who after a morning of writing emails, takes a stroll by the creek. I tell my coworkers and my doctor that it’s for my body’s health and that the goal is 8,000 steps.
But it is really so I can talk to the rocks and ask the trees if they remember me.
Peace,
Andrew
Andrew's View of the Week 
What a beautiful, lyrical post. Getting older means watching the past move on more frequently.
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It does move on. Sometimes I wish it would move slower.
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I echo your sentiments. When I was a kid, my mom used to send us off to play and tell us not to come back until supper time. We used to walk down by the river, for miles, with our ‘guard dog’ – an aging spaniel.
I didn’t want my children or grandchildren to miss that kind of freedom. I wanted them to be ‘free range’ too. We moved around a lot, but mostly we chose houses that were either on the outskirts of town or in the country, so that we all had places to roam!
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Where I grew up started out being on the edge of the city, but soon the city closed in and all the fields and orchards are gone.
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Kind of sad. There need to be more forbidden trails and orchards for young boys to explore and trespass.
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There does. Sometimes I think we’ve taken something important away from our children by not having places like this to explore.
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I took heart the other day when my girls were greatly enjoying “urban exploring.” We went someplace with over and underground parking and lots of stairs between the two. There were also small puddles for Joe to splash in. My girls were fascinated by this parking phenomenon. They wanted to explore all the entrances and exits. Later we parked somewhere with a fountain nearby. Upon closer inspection, the fountain flowed into a small lake with two ducks sitting on a wall nearby. They delighted in all of this, even though it was in the midst of a city. Being a country-bred girl who laments the lack of nearby forests, this gave me hope.
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Sounds like a fun time – great for the kids to be able to explore.
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What a beautiful essay – wistful and bittersweet. Sometimes it good to go back to the places of our childhood and other times… hmm.
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It is all that. Sometimes it’s good to revisit the past.
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A creature of here… I will think about that today.
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It is something to think about.
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The nostalgia you captured in your post warmed my heart with that bittersweet feeling that comes from knowing these kind of thoughts all too well. But you know what makes me sad? You don’t eat ice cream cones anymore???!! Say it isn’t so!
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It is a bittersweet post. Yes, sadly, my body no longer tolerates ice cream, but it still enjoys rocks and trees …
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Even in prose, your words are poetry, showing a great sense of space and time.
Keep talking to the rocks and trees. It’s good for the soul.
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Trees are great listeners and rocks wise. This post might be considered a “prose poem.” I love the idea of linking the two.
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Your beautiful piece here creates a very nostalgic mood as I think about some of the places I enjoyed long ago, that although they still remain, have suffered loss due to progress! Our own aging process does indeed change us, too, but I can easily bring back some of those youthful memories. 🙂
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There are so many things from my youth that I still remember. I find it sad that some things get swept aside in the name of progress.
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This post is fantastic…says it all about the losses in our lives due to progress. We have our memories though and if we close our eyes we can almost float back to those halcyan days of youth.
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I remember those times when I walk along that creek. So many memories.
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A beautiful look back, Andrew. it sounds like you are comfortable being “that guy” and, after all, why not? Happy Monday and enjoy your daily walk.
Ω
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I am comfortable with the role – it’s a nice trip down memory lane and can often be used to clear my cube of young engineers so I can get some work done. 😉
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The Past can be a useful tool for Today.
Ω
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It can be very useful.
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That was beautiful, Andrew. I felt your walk and your childhood. Sadness… You’d like Chet Raymo’s The Path. https://www.amazon.com/Path-One-Mile-Walk-Through-Universe/dp/B001G8WOT0 He takes your walk but a daily walk to work and discusses everything he finds along the way. I love that book.
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I’ll have to get it. Sounds like a wonderful book.
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Talking to rocks and questioning trees is good for the soul. Great post.
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Often the trees and rocks have much to say.
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Indeed they do … if we would only listen.
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A beautiful piece of writing. We used to play cricket where once a carthorse had lived in a field of knee deep 1930s. Now they load lorries with very large pieces of metal that they have welded together to make everybody in their world happy.
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Thank you – we have a place like that here. Only we played baseball there and now it’s a shopping mall.
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I can associate with the idea of pillars of concrete replacing the creek bed. Just like in our lives, progress isn’t always for the better. Often, we walk amongst the concrete that we built and ask the question, “Where am I?”
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Yes, I do get that same, “Where am I?” when I look out from the top floor of my office building. The mountains look the same, but between here and there has changed.
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Lovely memories, Andrew. Progress is so effective that our children don’t have such memories.
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These days, a parent would be arrested for allowing a 12 year to wander around like we did back then.
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I know the feeling. Wish I didn’t, but I guess it’s the price we pay for living as long as we have.
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I’ve often wondered if I’d known the price back then, would I have lived differently?
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Aw, sweetly nostalgic.. loved it, and as for the pain of *progress*… ouch indeed.
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Progress – an often false path.
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