The creek

Spring had finally returned. The warm sun beat down, drying up the little creek until it was no more than a trickle sliding past the banks. Much different from the raging flood, overflowing its banks, not more than two months previous. With the drop in water level came my chance to escape once again to my hideaway. The creek flowed beyond our yard into a thicket of blackberry vines that formed a tent over the creek bed. Ducking below the thorns overhead, trying to avoid tearing my arms on the spines reaching out to grab me from either side, I would push through the archway into my own world away from the prying eyes of my mom.

Emerging from the tunnel of thorns, I entered a magical world where imagination ran wild. Morning dew glistened on meadow grasses begging to be set free by the slightest brush of a leg against its temporary home, sending it in a slow ever growing cascade as it merged with other patiently waiting droplets until finally coming to rest in the ever welcoming soil. Those unfortunate enough to be left waiting on their blades found freedom by evaporating in the new day’s heat, leaving the air damp and smothering as the sun climbed to its place in the sky. Surrounded on all sides by towering birches and evergreens, all other sound was erased by the rustling of leaves and branches in a gentle breeze. This was my world.

A length of knotted rope pillaged from a neighboring garbage pile and tied in the upper branches of a tree became the rigging of my pirate ship. Sailing into unknown waters, I would often encounter enemy pirates (my brothers and sister) leading to fierce battles with wooden swords fashioned from saplings stripped of their bark, the handles wrapped with duct tape.

Somehow, over the sounds of battle, would inevitably come the faint call of my mom summoning us back to reality and our grumbling stomachs. With bruised knuckles and red welts striping our arms and legs we would duck back through that magical portal, for the time being leaving our world of imagination for the confines of reality. Shuffling up the porch steps, the scent of freshly baked bread filtered through the screen door. Thick warm slices waited to be spread with mounds of peanut butter and raspberry jam still icy from the freezer.

Our stomachs swollen from the mid-day feast, we would quietly sneak back across the yard praying that mom would not call us back to perform some tedious chore, or even worse imprison us in our rooms for the dreaded “rest” time. As a kid, I always thought that the rest was more for her benefit than ours, now I know that was the case. Having escaped for the time being, we would make our way back through the gateway, this time as King Arthur’s knights protecting the realm from danger with our homemade bows and arrows.

During the seven years of living in that home, memories too numerous to recount revolve around that creek bed, but in particular three stand out so vividly in my mind. Looking back it is almost humorous when I realize that those most vivid memories are also all related to somehow finding myself in some sort of trouble.

Just beyond my meadow, the creek flowed into a neighboring yard and through a culvert below the road backing our neighborhood. One hot summer day, having grown bored with sword fights and tree climbing, my brother Ben, his friend and I wandered down the creek bed to the culvert. Bordering the road on either side were guard rails, intended to keep cars from running off the road into the creek bed. Having spent a portion of the morning fishing in the creek, even though I had never seen any indication of fish previously, I had in my pocket a spool of fishing line. It must have been Ben’s idea since I was much smarter than to attempt it, but somehow we found ourselves stringing that fishing line between the guard rails on either side of the road, spanning the lanes with an invisible thread. Since it was in a part of the neighborhood not yet being developed, this road was rarely used, giving us time to set our trap. We must have run that line between the guard rail posts two or three times before we heard a car coming. Scrambling to tie off the end we raced into the pipe beneath the road just as a large truck came around the corner. Rumbling overhead, the truck continued on unimpeded. With its big tires it must have rolled over the line pushing it to the ground and cruising past none the wiser. It was about this time that I started getting uneasy about the whole situation, but with my younger brother goading me on I was not going to be a chicken. Not to be dissuaded by our initial failure we again climbed to the street and began to improve our snare. Untying the line we pulled it tighter until it bit into our hands, finally retying it as we listened to it hum in the wind, like a gigantic violin string. We finished not a moment too soon as again we heard the approaching sounds of another vehicle. Throwing ourselves down the bank into the creek bed we raced into the culvert splashing to the center as we awaited the oncoming car. As the car sped overhead it caught hold of the line. The snap of the fishing line as it broke sounded like the shot of a gun, followed by the whine of it whipping through the air which was immediately followed by tires screeching on pavement, car doors slamming, and yelled profanities and derogatory comments about kids. Silently we sat below that road, waiting to hear the car leave. As luck would have it though, the man in the car jumped down the bank of the creek and looked into the culvert. As soon as we heard him splash down onto the muddy bank we ran screaming from the other end chased by angry threats, only daring to glance back and see the shiny red of a sports car parked in the middle of an otherwise empty street. Following the creek bed until we reached the safety of our meadow, we waited, anticipating our route of escape should the screaming driver continue to give chase. He never did follow us beyond the road. Sitting in the meadow we heard the squeal of protesting tires as the driver continued on his way. With whispered promises to never tell, the three of us returned to the house to guiltily play indoors just in case the driver was driving around the neighborhood looking for us.

By mid-summer the creek dwindled to a couple of inches of muddy water just wetting the bottom of the creek bed. There was still some flow to it, the water running of to somewhere being wasted. Somehow that water had to be able to be used in a productive way. And so, it was decided that we would dam the creek so that we could have a swimming hole. Following the creek down stream, Ben and I found that the creek narrowed just before entering the culvert, the perfect spot for our dam.

Not being structural engineers, the thought was that we would just throw some rock in the bottom of the creek and that would do the trick. By carefully selecting river rocks from a neighbor’s rock garden, we could make it look as if none were missing. We spent most of the morning hauling large rocks from the neighbor’s yard, lugging them across our yard, dropping them down into the creek bed, and then again picking them up to move them down to the site of the dam. It was a total distance of about 200 hundred yards but making that trip twenty or so times it was getting pretty old. Disappointment was on its way as we continued to pile the rocks on with little effect. Not only was the water continuing to flow through the spaces in the dam but there was no back up at all.

We decided that somehow we had to patch the small spaces. By packing mud into the holes we were able to get the water level behind the dam to rise a little, but as soon as we would start to make some progress the water level would crest over the top of the mud and begin to wash away all of the work we had done. It was then that I received what must have been divine inspiration. All along the creek bank was long grass. It was easy enough to pull out and in small chunks fit nicely into the holes. The roots held the dirt together so that the water could not wash away our progress, and the level of the creek began to slowly rise.

Although the design of the dam was much improved, it still did not hold back all of the water. At the base of the dam somehow we had leaks that just couldn’t be plugged no matter how many chunks of grass we shoved into the holes. Somehow we needed to find something that would block all of the water. Again, brilliant ideas came and using my pocketknife I began to hack away at the upper banks. The lawn of the neighbor ended in a steep slope as it dropped into the creek. He would never be able to see that the very edge had been taken for our dam. As I sliced through the sod, Ben would peel it away from the bank in huge slabs. Each slab was carefully placed across the face of the dam blocking any escape for the water. Soon we were standing not in a foot of water, but up to our waists.