The Creek

 When I was small boy growing up during the 1940's in Beaver City, Nebraska one of the adventurous places was the Beaver Creek. 

This creek wound almost around three sides of the town and of course was irresistible to small boys. 

The most frequent trips to the 'crick' were by riding on our bikes south out of town, by the power and ice plant to the bridge over the creek.  We would park our bikes in the ditch by the bridge and either stand on the bridge and throw gravel and rocks into the water; or, being small boys, practice our spitting skills. Sometimes we would slip and slide our way down to the creek bank and explore under the bridge and up and down the stream for a little way. 

Sometimes we would walk this same route and then walk the creek bank to the bridge on the southeast corner of town.  With all the weeds and saplings growing along the bank this was our 'jungle' adventure.

 By far, my favorite place was east out of town down the street that I lived on.  This took you through a farm field and then a pasture.  In the pasture was a big depression that was a buffalo wallow.  It was created years and years before by buffalo rolling on the ground in the same place over and over.  The resulting depression filled with dust and the buffalos like to coat their bodies with it.  The creek was just beyond the pasture and created an island by cutting across the bottom of a horseshoe bend.  When the creek water was high it was surrounded by water.  There was a fallen tree trunk across the water that we used as a bridge.

 I only went fishing in this creek once with an older neighbor boy.  We caught crawdads, which look kind of like small skinny lobsters, and he took them home to eat.  Ugh!