Prickly Pear Creek is escorted through my home town by stone and concrete retaining walls on each side. As a boy, my best summer days were spent in the creek and all along those walls. The walls served as a kind of elevated path you could take to cross through town.
On hot summer days, a bunch of
us swam at Long John’s Falls, near the house where my father grew up.
When I think back to those
times, my fondest memories are not of walking the walls, or swimming, or
floating the creek in inner tubes.
My best memories are those
dreamy, almost other worldly times when I flopped face-down down atop the sun-warmed
concrete cap of the wall to warm and dry myself after swimming in the chill
creek waters.
I still smell the wet concrete
against my face. I feel myself almost
melting into the wall. With my eyes closed,
I feel the warm sun pressing down on me.
I hear the voices of other kids still at play in the water—a kind of
disjointed music with water running through.
I know the big kids are
watching out for the little kids. One of
the biggest boys will be doing a backflip soon.
I listen, waiting for the shouts of approval.
I am in no hurry to go home.
—Mitchell Hegman
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