Within my neighborhood, there were a few spots around town that had an impact on me as a child. Immediately surrounding my house were three schools, comprising all 12 grade levels, within walking distance from me. This was a profound advantage and impact on me as I had spaces to learn and play and grow as a child. When I got older, my friends and I grew attracted to longboarding and skateboarding, where we would longboard around the downtown dearborn area, skating down hills and what not. As far as least favorite spots, there weren’t really any as we were fairly privileged in terms of public spaces. We also had hiking trails in the form of the henry ford estate in our town.
In my childhood, I was lucky enough to have parents that supported me in my athletic endeavors. Subsequently, my childhood sport growing up was in fact hockey. Hockey is consistently ranked one of the most expensive childhood sports to play, and the fact that my parents could afford to send me through 9 seasons of competitive hockey. I was lucky enough with where I lived to have a public hockey rink within my hometown, a luxury that I realized later in life, was not one that all kids in the metro detroit area had. The hockey rink was called the D.I.S.C., or the dearborn ice skating center, and I played there for 7 seasons until I switched to playing house hockey for westland, a town adjacent to my own.
After aging out of hockey, my favorite spots switched. I was in highschool and spent more of my time longboarding to music around my neighborhood. Among the favorite spots in my town, the one that I longboarded to the most was a parking structure in downtown dearborn with good views of not only the downtown dearborn area, but the detroit skyline as well. I would specifically ride up there later in the night, when the local traffic wasn’t as dense, and I could skateboard in the streets. I would typically pick up a snack or something and an arizona iced tea from a gas station on the way and ride up to the top of the parking garage. Sometimes, my friends would join me, and we would all ride around and joke with each other, enjoying the summer weather and friendships we had. This part of my live, during highschool, was one in which I felt the most happy, and the most at peace.
