The street I grew up on....

I grew up on an average-looking neighborhood street with small, one-story, lower middle-class houses on either side. The trees were young, nothing spectacular to look at, and stood straight, not yet having the weight of old age to bend their supple trunks. The yellow grass in each yard was dry from the intense Texas sun, and looked prickly and brittle. Even the name of the street was average: Eldridge Street. In fact, the only thing particularly remarkable about the street was the hill. From the evenly paved cement suddenly rose a steep and mountainous hill that veered towards the sky, or at least, seemed to, from my five-year-old point of view. In the winter, the hill would ice over and I'd take one of my mom's baking pans and slide down the hill, going faster and faster every second. Sometimes, cars would get stuck trying to drive up the hill in the ice, slowly drifting back down to the base, despite their spinning tires.

Before exams, before homework, before stress about work or relationships or GPA's, there was just an average street with average houses, surrounded by average trees, and a mountainous hill that a little girl slid down on her mom's baking pan.