One of my favorite places as a child was the pond down the giant hill, so it seemed at the time, a little walk from my house. The other kids in the neighborhood would also spend a lot of their time down there. There was plenty to do such as take adventures through the woods, catch minnows and tadpoles, or zooming down the hill on our bikes. All we needed was an imagination and our entire day would be fulfilled.

The day at the pond would begin by flying down the hill leading to it on our bikes. The hill began as a paved road, but then turned into a rock driveway leading to the house on the other side of the pond. If you didn’t ride onto the grass before reaching the rocks, you would most likely slide and fall off your bike. They were nice folks and all considering they let us play down there and always bought the numerous things our school sold for fundraising, but every time we saw them leaving or arriving home, we would run and hide in the woods. Our hiding place consisted of running behind the bench that say on the edge of the woods, or going to another part of the woods that was open in the middle where many times you could find us playing house or school. There was something cool right behind the bench in the woods though. There were these thin twigs that were entwined together that made an arch from one tree to the next. To us, it looked like an opening to a bear cave even though there was no cave anywhere in sight. We made this our “door” into the adventurous woods. These woods were always very dark, because the sun couldn’t reach through the umbrella the trees created. It was like a jungle right down the road from my own house, but then if you continued to walk, a particular part of the “jungle” became a whole new world. All of a sudden this little circle of woods was shining from the sunlight. All it was  missing was a waterfall, but you could hear one. Following the sound of the overflow of water, you would come across a running stream making its way through the woods like a slithering snake. If you go “upstream,” the waterfall would continue getting louder. Finally after a short walk, we found the source; it was the huge pipe the pond water flowed to so the pond would not flood the land surrounding it. It was our own little waterfall that submerged out of the ground. We did not know where we were in the woods, because we just followed the sound, the first time discovering the “waterfall” anyway. Looking around where we were, there was a huge hill right above us that led to the rock driveway we started out on. It was a mountain to us at that age; we had to use the trees to help navigate our way up the “mountain” to keep from falling.

After making it back onto the driveway, we had to find something else to get into now. Trying to skip rocks across the pond was our next adventure. That did not last for five minutes considering I could never master that skill in all the years trying. Looking down in the pond, there were little fish swimming all around in the shallow part. We needed something to catch them to be able to have a closer look. We all ran to my house to get a bucket to trap them. Arriving back at the edge of the pond, my old, Puma tennis shoes flew through the air as I step into the water. The cold, muddy bottom seeps between my toes as it pulls my feet into its hold. I seek out the spot where a lot of minnows and tadpoles are and sling the bucket through the water as I capture the fast, little fish. I recapture my feet from the mud and step onto the grass around the pond to see what I have trapped in the bucket. Looking at these tiny things swimming around, I tried to decide what to do with them. The stream from the “waterfall” pops into my mind, and I decide if I pour them in there they will live and I will still be able to watch them swim around. I make my way down the giant hill trying not to tumble down it. I pour the fish into the stream and follow their path downstream. I watch for a very short little while as the sun begins to set behind the trees on the opposite side of the pond. No wonder my stomach was growling, it is supper time. My mind wonders to what my mom has cooked for tonight. We pick up our bikes that are thrown by the edge of the rock driveway and begin to walk them up the huge hill because it is way too steep to even attempt to ride our bikes up. Our adventure for today at the pond has come to an end, even though we will probably be back some time tomorrow because it is summer time, and we stay outside all day no matter how scorching the sun is.