Blowing & Drifting

Almost all of my runs and skis, many of our family walks, and quite a few drives take me down Creek Lane, just around the corner from our place. The street is unremarkable except maybe for the large size of some of the houses and for the high number of kids who are seemingly always outside playing. I don't even know if these kids live in any of the houses on the street, but they do lend the street an air of permanent carnival. They sit for literally hours in a fishing boat on its trailer, pretending to cast lines into the street. They zoom on their garish BMX bikes up and down the sidewalks. They stage "olympics" that involve running and rollerblade races. They stalk, weeping, across the street after a mom yells at them for picking on each other. They make incredibly elaborate chalk drawings that spill down one driveway along the sidewalks in either direction. They ask me where I got my rollerskis, and then try to ride their bikes faster than I'm going. (So far I've won one and lost one.) They play the same simple roll on a shiny blue snare drum on some unfortunate's lawn. They leave two dirty socks on opposite sides of a driveway, and forget them for days.