Look closely at this photo.  There is nothing remarkable about it, is there?  A tree or two, unkempt streets, and a tiny stream so marginal that it seems to scarcely exist.

Poor and unremarkable as it may be, that is the place where I spent countless happy hours of my boyhood, in Rockdale, Texas.  It was a favorite summer destination for my brothers and pals.  Our bikes took us there – and many other places in town and miles into the country – carrying nothing more than cotton twine, slices of bologna and a coffee can, sometimes a book.  With pieces of bologna tied to the twine, we coaxed crawdads to the surface, where we scooped them up with the coffee can.  (We took them home and dumped them in the hand-made goldfish pond our mother and we had spent weeks building, muddying it up considerably.)  Nothing else lived in or around that still, muddy water, except a few snakes and lizards; unless a rain had fallen recently, the little creek didn’t even flow.

Sometimes we stomped around in the water and mud; sometimes we lay under the tree – the one in the photo is probably the same one that shaded us – and read books which always featured cowboys, football heroes, bold adventurers.  Sometimes we walked a few blocks north to the old minnow farm, to watch the shimmering mass of fish in numbers we couldn’t imagine.  We spent entire days there, being free to roam the summer hours under only one command: pedal home by dark.

This tiny stream has a name: Ham Branch.  Brother Rush sent the photo to me today.  Searching it, I can’t see a single thing that has changed in 50 years.  How can such a meager, unadorned place pull so mightily on my heart?  It is a place most people would pass without thought or notice.

Now imagine how simple and innocent is the life of a child who chooses that place as a favorite spot to spend summer days.  Muddy, dirty water (often stagnant in summer), weeds and snakes (real or imagined), crawdads….but we looked forward to hopping on our bikes and riding there to hang out for hours, with nothing more than a single shade tree, string and bologna and a coffee can, a book or two, and imaginations.

I wouldn’t trade it for all the rides in Disneyland…