Someone

Troy Braaten									Creative Writing
Set 1										Favorite Place
				             My Backyard

I have lived in the same house all of my life. Most internal aspects of a house stay the same, but a house's yard is unique and holds memories that a house cannot offer. I believe my backyard was crucial to my development as a child.						              
When I was younger and I would get up for school I would always go downstairs, sit in my kitchen and eat my breakfast. I couldn’t help but look to my right, through the kitchen window and see my wonderful backyard. At that age it was so-called “cool” to have a big backyard and mine was just that compared to the other kids on the block. I live on a cul-de-sac, and the houses towards the end have the biggest yards. It just so happened I had the nicest and spacious yard. Back in elementary and middle school all of the children on the block were very active and energetic. We would all play fun-filled games and try and make new ones. The boys would create things and act like little thrill seekers. My backyard was our “mother-ship”. That is where the thinking and developing really took place.
One of the many games we created was called Zug-fu. It involved two teams and took place in my miniature backyard battlefield. Each player had a hand-operated weapon. Either a slingshot or a peashooter and rocks was our ammunition. One team’s starting location was on my garage roof and the other was behind my back fence. Since one team had the advantage of being on higher ground it usually consisted of fewer players. As the games were underway, we started to get really hurt. I remember big quarter sized welts all over my body after just a couple games. But we were smart and compensated. The night before my family ordered five pizza pies and I immediately got the idea to rip up the boxes and stuff them in our clothing to act as armor against the bombarding rocks. Zug-fu lasted a good two weeks until a miss-guided shot by a peashooter shattered the rear window of my parent’s car. I was deeply disappointed but the fact still remained that Zug-fu was too dangerous and has gone too far.