3^rd Grade. I was in Kensington Elementary School. It was a time before our schools were considered war zones, and the playground wasn’t surrounded by 10-feet-high chain length fences. On weekends, my sister would drop her kids off. BJ, who was ten, Josh, eight, Shana, seven. We would be locked out of the house, so we would fill old water bottles with water from the outdoor spigot, then ride our bikes down to the playground. Shana and I would play Sailor Moon, climb the wooden balance beams. Josh and BJ would chase each other. If the neighborhood kids were around, we’d play Red Rover or dodgeball.

Our favorite thing to do was ride our bikes on the sidewalk around the school buildings, up and down the ramps. We’d even sneak in during early summer to help out old teachers take down their decorations. We were…. Little kids who played hard and forgot everything except to come home at dusk for supper. Sun-burned, sweating, and loud, the playground was our fantasy land to indulge in our imaginations and make the world ours for the taking. We were just a bunch of kids with too much time and too little supervision.