Getting off the bus after school and rushing home to throw down my backpack and hop on my bike, petaling as fast as I could to the Oaklandon Wood Park to meet my friends Aaron, Mason, and Gordon is something I did on a daily basis regardless of how hot, cold, rainy, or snowy it was. The feeling of freedom we got hopping off our bikes and walking to the open field with our football or to the basketball court by the firehouse to play whatever if was we were going to play was amazing. We’d play these games for hours, while plenty of kids strolled in and out, playing games like tag and hide and seek all while watching us do our thing. Every now and then a train would roll through, horn blaring, wheels screeching on the tracks, all the kids lined up against the fence to get a closer look at the gigantic engine plowing through our little town.

Whenever we’d get tired of playing our games or just got hot or cold we’d make a trip to Arby’s or K gas station to recharge and talk about what we just did. The conversations were always meaningless and jumbled but the smell of the roast beef sandwiches in the back is something I still remember fondly, and even though none of us had enough money to buy anything at the time, I could basically taste them. Slurping on an ice cold polar pop everyday (32 oz.) is definitely one of the reasons I gained the weight I did, even though we played these high active games, the weight was still there and the polar pops were still consumed. “I think I feel sick,” we’d all say every day after drinking one and playing our games but we could never get enough of the humongous carbonated liquid.

The games we played weren’t just for fun, they were for pride, if you won, you had that for the whole day, the whole night; all the way until we played again the next day. We held our heads high and argued because regardless of who won or lost, there was always a team unhappy with the result, most times we believed we’d never speak to each other again, but there we were the next day playing the same game with the same friends. I miss the times we spent there, when the only thing that mattered was a football or basketball game and getting a polar pop in between. Since then the park was torn down, and the Arby’s workers that knew us by name have been replaced. Not much in Oaklandon has stayed the same, but we still have the big train, and the memories we shared.