Down by the Coolie

2-9-09

My creative writting assignment for this week- or last week rather since I procrastinated- was to write about whatever we wanted.  I could just use something I already did, but what fun would that be, right?  Anyway… here it is.

Whenever I think about my childhood, it usually always comes back to one thought: the coolie.  Just passed my apartement there is a bike path and the coolie runs along side it.  When I was younger, I spent a good deal of my time there goofing around.  My friends Jake, Jade, and Wyatt right by my side.  It was pretty dried up at times, so we’d spend our days rummaging around the reeds, playing games, and going on "adventures."  Some of the older kids had built a make shift coolie fort and layed boards down over the really wet parts so everyone could walk around without getting soaked.  There was also a big tree right smack dab in the middle of it, and there was a crude looking tree house type thing on top of it.  To call it a tree house though would be completely unfair.  It was more like a piece of plywood thrown up on the branches.

Our coolie fort was a huge secret, and we made a pact never to tell our mothers.  They’d flip if they found out we were parading around in mud and water that came from who knows where.  Isn’t it mostly precipitation water?  Anyway, there was one time I got into a fight and the two of us got completely covered in mud.  Before I went up to my apartement, I got as much of the mud of myself with the hose spout outside.  I went upstairs, told my babysitter I fell into the coolie when I was riding my bike along the path, and ended up telling my mom the same thing when she got home.  The bike path is a good five yards away from the coolie, so how she believed I fell off my bike and into the water I have no idea.  She probably didn’t believe me.  My mom used to let me get away with little things so I didn’t come up with better, more crafty ideas for getting away with things.  That way she could always catch me on the big stuff.

The coolie is still a big part of my life today.  In the summer I ride my bike along the path and take walks.  Down the path a little ways there is a Japanese Garden where I spend a great deal of my time.  I’ll do my homework there, hang out with friends, and one time I even played guitar out there.  I only did that once though because people kept stopping to listen or they just stared and I can’t handle that much attention.  Further down the path there is a cement chunk man mad damn.  That is my favorite place in the whole world.  If you tip toe your way across the rocks and have a seat on one of them, it feels like you’re the only person left in the world.  It’s amazing.  I love to sit on the rocks and listen to the water trinkle over them and breath in the air.  Most people find the smell of coolie water disgusting, but I don’t.  It brings back my childhood.

The Japanese Garden- I got the picture off a tourist website and did not take it myself, just so you all know that.