Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Little Things #3

Creek or Culvert

This is a question that looms in the air when I visit my family. I grew up in San Jose, it can be a urban environment but it also has some nice suburbs. The house I grew up in had a great backyard, tons of trees, great space especially for where we lived and we had a creek just on the other side of our back fence. We would play in the creek as often as we could get away with it. When the apples on our tree were ready for picking we would use them as baseballs and hit them over the fence, or if we needed to get rid of incriminating evidence we would dispose of it in the creek...the creek was always a fun place to hang....this was until Seth came in the picture....he comes and starts to hang out with us and my sister and I start to talk about doing something in the 'creek' and Seth wants to know which 'creek'..."well the one behind the house, derh." Seth of course begins to laugh and goes on to tell me that it is not a creek but a culvert. WHAT! I have no idea what you are talking about, that's a creek....water runs through it like 4 times a year...other than that it's a man made cement creek bed...oh wait. So then I continue to argue the point because for the last 2+ decades my entire family has been calling it a creek. Then Seth asks my father "What's that behind the house?" my Dad's response "What the culvert, or drainage ditch." WHAT! My dad has NEVER IN HIS LIFE called it that, and all of a sudden he changes on me. Well fine Seth 1 point - Eugie and the rest of my family excluding my dad 0 Points.
How can you call this a culvert...this is such a creek...look at the charm...a bonus feature I didn't mention before is under the freeway you can mess around with the homeless peoples stuff...now if that isn't the perfect making for wholesome childhood memories I don't know what is.

1 comment:

Kimberly said...

Awww the memories! But wait! Where's all the graffiti? There was nothing like sliding down the side on your butt and wearing out the seat of your pants....good times, good times! I miss your backyard too. It was such a tripp being back there for Charlotte's reception. That clubhouse and the fig tree. Oh man...childhood memories indeed!