Thunder Trail

I am sitting on Big Bertha.

It’s ok, she doesn’t mind.

It’s far from the first time, but it might be the last.

Most times I’ve been here, i was covered in the yellow clay mud that now peeks only sporadically from beneath the mat of pine needles and short, durable greenery.

I hear the birds and a cricket or possibly a cicada, but not the familiar clank of coaster brakes. You know, the ones… where you can lock up the rear wheel in an impressive skid across clay and pine needles. It is by far the coolest way to stop.

Though there were many trails here, there was one main clearing which served as the defacto start of them all, and therefore the hangout spot to use between runs. And, though there were choices, there were preferences, indicated by the scouring of the knobby BMX tires which maintained the trails.

I don’t remember what we called the most popular trail, but i know why it was the most popular. It ended in a towering mound of dirt known as Big Bertha, the exclamation point at the end of the short trail through the young pines.

It was what it all came down to. It separated the boys from the also other boys. And also the occasional collarbone.

Some say it was ten feet tall. Some fifteen.

Now it is much smaller, by mythology if not size. I bet i could still catch some great air, if only once.

Everything here is different and the same. The two rusty junk cars are slightly more rusty, but not significantly so. They’re exactly where i remembered them, though it’s not as far of a walk.

There are new trails here, for serene walking, which now need to be marked with sticks and flags. Most of our trails are what would now be called drainage channels. They were then, too, hence the mud, but now they’re unplayed in. And unmarred by thousands of bike tracks from dozens of boys. No longer trails anyone follows, since the official ones stick to flatter and more boring terrain.

When did the trails go quiet? What happened here?

What will happen here? Did Big Bertha revel in her glory days? Does she miss them? How long before no one is left to remember? Will she be a parking lot by then, or will she outlive us all?

A leaf falls.
In July.

Big Bertha lies silent.

H