Today I saw a ball on my way to dinner. It’s one of those bouncy balls you can get at Target which are filled inside a big cage. After seeing the ball, I was more alert to see if there were any children playing around. The ball was just sitting next to the sidewalk in the gutter.
This started a train of thoughts which led back to my memories of playing ball when I was younger. We live on a hill and whenever the ball (be it tennis ball, basketball, cherry ball, baseball, or even super bouncy ball) went over the fence, we had to chase it as it would keep on rolling downhill. That’s why I was especially wary of children around when I noticed the ball. This led to the memory of water running downhill along the gutter in our neighborhood.
This eventually led to back in the days when my mom was watering the plants or we were washing the car, we’d end up with a stream of water flowing along the gutter and into the sewer. When we were small, we would build these little paper boats and see it flow along the stream. We would follow it to right before it enters the sewer hole, which was usually a few blocks away. Sometimes along the way, there could be some obstructions like leaves or rocks, and we would have to give it a little push for it to continue.
Those were some fun times.