Phelan: Neighborhood friends made childhood memorable

Because of the lack of sidewalks and immensely low level of traffic, we would walk around in the middle of the street. Of course, we became more visible when we rode our bikes or Razor scooters, and we rode those often. The bike was our staple of transportation because it was faster than walking and much more fun. Nights in the summer were spent taking bike rides. I don’t know where we went because there really weren’t that many places to go in our tiny, isolated subdivision, but I can still remember showing up at friends’ houses with my bike and us riding together until 8 or 8:30 p.m.

I remember having secret forts, with locations ranging from a horribly unstable treehouse to a 5-foot-deep hole dug into a field. I remember my friends and I set up a club called MASAC – the first letter of our first names in order of age – on our compost pile. We didn’t seem to mind that all of our playtime there involved sinking into piles of decomposing leaves crawling with spiders. I remember throwing rocks into the creek for hours. I remember walking my friend, Mary, home once and almost getting hit by a golf cart. I remember holding our breath when we walked through locust corral, and I remember Little Kid Island.

I remember it all so well that it hurts.

Eventually, my group of neighborhood friends split up. There was no definitive point, just a slow abandonment of Barbie dolls and an increase in 9-year-old girl drama. People’s parents not getting along, friends from school and sports and a bridge being built over the creek where we would play for hours took their toll on us. No amount of funny, homemade videos could hold us together once school, boyfriends and other things came into the picture.