A field, a creek, and a sandbox

When I was younger we had the coolest sandbox in the whole world. It started out as a pool. One of those above ground floppy sided pools. We had it for about 3 months and then my brother wouldn't quit throwing dirt into it so my dad got rid of it. Instead of filling the hole back in, my dad decided to frame out the hole and fill it with sand.

It was 12ft square and about 3 feet deep. We spent hours a day out in that sandbox. We dug all the way to the bottom and filled the hole with water, making our own pool. We dug trenches and make complex water irrigation systems around our castles. We would dig holes and bury each other so all you could see was our heads. We buried each others favorite toys. When we got a little older, we would bury firecrackers and blow up sand castles and other sand creations. We also blew up our fair share of GIJoes, Care Bears, and other toys. That sand box was a wonderful idea and keep us out of the house for hundreds of hours. I would guess that it has been about 10 years since either Matt or I played in that thing. It had started to fill in with grass and a few small trees. The dogs loved to dig holes and then lay in them to cool off. The sandbox had a long life.

So 18-20 years later the sandbox is no longer. Sunday after church I came home and started digging out tree stumps and raking the ground even. The last step to getting rid of Old Sandy, was cutting the frame and pulling it out of the ground. Matt and I joked about tearing out some of our childhood, but it was true. Both of us were kind of sad that day.

The other mainstays of our childhood are now gone. When we moved to O'Fallon there were 3 places we played. Our sandbox, a field up the street and a creek down the street. The field has been gone now for several years. It is now the home of Kohl's, Target, and other retail store. The last one, the creek is now gone. I drove by today and the concrete bridge that we jumped off of is gone. The creek bed has been filled in and blocked off to form a pond. It has been sad to see all of these go, one by one, but nothing can ever take away the memories that were created at those places, nothing.