When I Was A Kid...
When I was a kid I lived in the neighborhood adjacent to this
park. My parents still live there, in fact, in the same house that
I grew up in from 5 months old until I moved out at 20. You can
actually see their house from the park if you know where to look.
Consequently, I spent a lot of time here as a kid.
The park has changed a lot over the years. The area where the
paved paths are now was once occupied by houses, torn down to
expand the park. I had friends that lived there once upon a time.
And both banks of Thread Creek from the south side of the bridge
all the way around to Old Bridge Street in the Indian Hill
subdivision were much more heavily wooded. The houses that you can
see through the woods to the north, at least in the Fall and
Winter, have only been constructed recently. Growing up we would
ride our bikes, motorcycles and snowmobiles through the miles and
miles of trails that wound around the radio station antennas
surrounded by woods and prairie.
The area near this cache is enclosed by a metal fence. The
fence, of course, was not here when I was young, but instead marks
the boundary of a lot that then included a well maintained house.
You can still see the remains of the flowerbed that served as the
demarc for the "private" portion of the yard. The entire wooded
area beyond the fence, in fact, is private property, owned by the
lots on either side and mostly unused because it is wetland much of
the year.
Beyond the south corner of the fenced area is a yard with a
short retaining wall. Often after the spring rains the flood waters
from Thread Creek would fill the low lying areas right up to this
wall. In this very area, where the corner of the fence and the
nearby gate now stand, I hunted for tadpoles. Pants rolled up,
shoes cast aside, I would wade through the murky water searching
for movement. Most of the predators were back toward the creek, so
this wetland area served as an ideal breeding ground for frogs and
toads. As the tadpoles matured and grew legs, thousands of tiny
amphibians would make their way back to the stream or out into the
surrounding yards, many to be found by one of the dozens of
children that lived here. Others would serve as food for one of the
many birds and small mammals that occupied the surrounding wooded
places.
This park was a very special part of my childhood. That's why I
decided to place my first caches here. Please take the time to
enjoy the park, the playground, take a walk back into the woods
along the path that starts at the top of the hill, or grab the
other two caches located here. This cache will likely be an easy
find - please return it where you found it, as if it were your
own.
Congrats to Geo-Trails and GEO-BUM on the FTF!
