Flash in the Past

It is a dreary day and it is also a day to reflect on my past. Sometimes I do this when life's anxieties are overwhelming. I sometimes don't realize how beneficial it is to write when I am down. It is actually a good thing because it makes me stop in my tracks and say, "don't stress the small stuff".
The other day I decided to go down memory lane. I looked on the computer for photos of my city in the 70s. It is the city of Plainfield. There was not much happening in that small town but it was my town. I even know today how people who lived there like myself still talk about it on Facebook as if they miss it. "The Field of Plains". they now call it. It is has gone down a lot because of the times we are living in but it still has a certain flair.
As I scrolled through the videos posted, I came across a video of Greenbrook Park. I started looking and my mind started sending me back when I was a little girl at Jefferson Elementary School. That was the second oldest school in the country. I did not know that until now. I said, "it was creepy then and now I know why". This school was built in 1862 and was still there is the 60s when I was there. They just demolished that school in 2007. Only if walls of that school could talk.
We children would say, "watch out for the green maniacs". The "green maniacs" were to have lived in Greenbrook Park which was in the back of Jefferson Elementary School. When we children would go to the school yard in back of the building to play, we would always make sure we did not go pass the green gate that keep us from going into the park. But being curious children, we would dare each other to go pass the gate and into park. No one dare to it because we really believed that there were green maniacs. This story carried on year after year. Even after I left the school and went on the middle school, sixth grade, I would ride my bike over to the school but dare to go to back of the building. One day, a family friend who was visiting us, was looking for something to do because she was bored. I said to her, "want to go and ride our bikes". We did and I decided to go pass Jefferson School. I told her the story of the green maniacs. At first, she thought I was joking but she saw the disturbed look on my face and tone of my voice and said, “there is no such thing as green maniacs”. She said to me, "please don't believe that story". I was upset with her because I wanted to believe it.
Now that the school is no longer there and school yard is now covered with grass that has not been mowed. Old rotted tree trunks and branches that seem to have been there for years undisturbed that have grown considerably high. The green gate that kept us from going across the threshold to the unknown is rusted and old but still barely standing. And after you pass that green open broken-down gate, the manicured grass and trees shining forth with radiance as you view the park. But what amazes me the most are the deer roaming about back and forth from the school yard of Jefferson school to the entrance of Greenbrook Park, just reminds me the freedom they are having without worrying about the "green maniacs".