Autobiographical Writing

The Greenbelt

Stretching for miles in the safe community of Davis, the green belt is a long bike path containing grassy fields, play structures, and work-out stations for those intense soccer moms committed to keeping their cardio training up. But the most important part of the greenbelt to my childhood contained none of these more pleasant qualities of an upper-middle class park. As twelve year olds devoted to the idea of stirring trouble, my friends and I didn’t need much help to find ways to cause chaos and mayhem. Dried twigs and clods of dirt in a meadow the size of a soccer field was all my friends and I required to stay entertained during our seventh grade years, and we found exactly this in the dirt-clod field behind some rarely-used tennis courts on the greenbelt.

During one particular day, my buddy Mike had bought a water-balloon launcher and we quickly began launching the few water balloons we had left before aiming pomegranates at pigeons. We even set up our bikes in line formations and attempted to launch any objects we could find to try and knock them over. It was after Adam’s bike went crashing to the ground that a simultaneous light-bulb went on in all our heads: let’s turn this into a fight. My friends and I quickly divided into two groups, ran to separate ends of the field, placed our bicycles on their kickstands next to each other, and started throwing the dirt-clods at the other team. The goal was to be the first group to knock over all the bicycles of the opposing team with the dirt-clods. Of course, if you ventured too close to the other team, you were liable to get a dirt-clod smacking you in the head. Despite our shoulders getting sore, our clothes getting dirtied, and our skin getting battered and bruised, we couldn’t help laughing and having the time of our lives. After about an hour of an intense battle, the game came to an abrupt halt when Ty hit Adam with what was technically deemed a “pebble” and not a “dirt-clod,” leading to a quick disqualification. But the fun had been had, and for the rest of the day, no bruises or broken bones could ever have wiped those grins off our faces.

Twelve years later, my daily jogs take me by the field as I seem to have been influenced by those soccer moms I thought I never would have emulated. Only now, the field has no more dirt-clods, as green grass has instead grown in, with random flowers and unexpected weeds blooming depending on the season. All my friends have gone their separate ways now, and while we occasionally catch up, most of us have lives of our own that keep us occupied most of the time. When some of my friends do swing by Davis, we might grab a bite to eat, or watch a sports game, but without our bicycles leading the way, there is little reason for us to travel on the greenbelt any longer. I hardly notice it on my runs anymore, but every now and then I turn my head, looking in the direction of the dirt-clod field, and remember those kids with grins on their faces that could have lit up the sky.