Event Date: 1978–1984

Event Date: 1978–1984 Drafted: 2025-11-23

To an adult, the sand pile near the back porch was just… sand. Nothing remarkable. A place where new topsoil was dumped or where rain carved temporary gullies.

To kids? It was a continent.

That sand pile became: • a quarry • a battlefield • a highway system • an excavation pit where ancient civilizations (plastic army men) were discovered

My Tonka dump truck and scoop loader were my crew. The metal clanked, the wheels groaned, and every scoop of sand felt like real labor. I’d carve tunnels, shape mountain ranges, and engineer elaborate roads that looped around tree roots and toy tractors.

On days when Dad was fixing machinery nearby, the air filled with the sharp smell of grease and the metallic tapping of wrenches. Those sounds became part of the soundtrack of the sand pile. The world felt enormous but also contained — like the whole farm was watching over us as we built kingdoms.

Sometimes Helen would join in, creating little houses or burying plastic animals for me to “discover,” turning the whole pile into an archeological dig site. Sometimes Dori would plow through the middle like a friendly, panting bulldozer, obliterating an hour’s work with one swipe of her tail.

The sand pile wasn’t just dirt. It was the place where I learned: • how to build something from nothing • how to imagine entire worlds • how to start over after a collapse • how joy and ruin can be part of the same game

Every creative instinct I have today — in art, design, worldbuilding — has a little grain of that sand pile in it.