The Icicles

An essay by Morningside neighbor William K., age 11, 5th Grade student at PPS Fulton K-5

There’s a place across the street from my house called Heth’s Run. It is a valley and a former streambed. In Heth’s Run there is a park. It’s special to different people for different reasons. Like most parks it has swings and a play structure, but it also had a small hill that people would sled down, a tennis court, and a softball field. In the park we would play so many silly games, like when we would throw our shoes off during spring and summer, or when we would jump off the swings as far as we could. However, my story that makes it special takes place in Heth’s Run rather than the park.

I was 8 years old when my dad, my sister Freya, and I all went across the street to the park, but we didn’t stop there. We went all the way to the end of the park and went down into Heth’s Run. It was snowing hard; the snow was building up in fluffy clumps. After walking for a bit, we made it to one of the cliffsides on the side of the run and climbed it. It was steep and hard to climb, in some places it was even slippery. It felt like we were going to fall.

When we got to a ledge, we found that there were many icicles of all different sizes. We decided to start playing with them and kept sword fighting. Each time one of them broke, we would just grab another one off the wall, and each time it would be a different size. It was fun, to say the least, each time we would look for an icicle of a good size that would be fair in a fight. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I still look back to it three years later. It was a time when we could just play. It felt relieving, but also scary. I still have many memories of Heth’s Run.

Editor’s Note: 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼