The Dirt Hills

When I was younger, beyond my old elementary school in suburbia existed a bad place called the Dirt Hills — dirt jumps that kids with BMX bikes made in a clearing tucked into the woods that bordered the playground. At times, it was accessible from a back road, but the preferred method of entrance seemed to be jumping over the fence from the back of the schoolyard. It was hidden from view, as was the fort the local teens had built from carpets, sheets, and stolen old living room furniture. The parents hated it. It was the bad thing all the mothers talked about in town. The place the “dirtbags” went to. Every once in a while it would become forbidden, along with South Park and Grand Theft Auto.

What a grace; a telling indicator — what an oblivion, really — it was to say that that place was the depravity of our local childhoods; that the Dirt Hills were the bad part of our town.