Fond Memories

Fond Memories

As I grew up my family and I have lived in a few places, but none were more memorable than our house in Columbia, Maryland.

The neighborhood I grew up in was a brand new town house development. The house colors were tan, white, green or yellow. My neighborhood was shaped like a gigantic eight. In the center of each circle that made up the eight was a center island that was dense with trees, and had honeysuckle plants that gave off a sweet almost hypnotic smell. On the outskirts of the figure eight were the townhouses. In front of each house was a tree or two surrounded by evergreen shrubbery and a garden of various different types of insanely large flowers.

To the rear of the houses were wooden fences separating each town house, it was as if the builders of the houses had anticipated trouble between where one persons property ends and another persons property begins. Behind our fences there laid a dark concealing forest that was perfect for exploring as a kid. In this forest you could find any tree from redwoods to weeping willows towering in the sky. On the ground there was moss, ivy,

and even poison oak (which I found the hard way over and over again), but oddly enough there was no grass in this forest. Maybe the reason there was

no grass is because the trees were so huge that sunlight had not touched the ground there for at least 100 years.

There were many paths in the forest, and all of them led to isolated parts of the famous Patomic River. This river is famous in Maryland for the wildlife that it supports and its stunning beauty. The section of the river that I always