When I was a child,

I thought like a child, talked like a child and acted like a child. And boy, was it fun. For years we lived at an AFB in Arkansas. Diagonally across the street was the "teen center." I don't think that was what it was originally, but by the time we lived there it was. They use to hold dances even for us little scampers.

What I mostly remember though is the free standing chimney in the back. My friends and I would go back there and gather a supply of the broken glass pretending they were jewels that we would find on our adventures. We would hide them in the cracks of the bricks and the tiny spiders would become huge in our minds to guard the treasure we so diligently collected.

I know they were glass, yet even now as I look back, I see the sparkling yellow topazes, blue aquamarines, green emeralds, red rubies and clear diamonds of my treasure. I don't see a crumbling chimney behind an old building, but a temple full of surprise and danger for our expedition.