The hole held for over a decade; that is, before the dirt contractor removed it with one sweep of his blade.

The lake I remember was wilder, home mostly to ducks, songbirds and an occasional hunter, and, oh yes, a watering hole for a band of horses belonging to some junior-high-age boys who rode there on hot July afternoons in the early '60s.

Did Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado pass this way in the 16th century on his search for mythical cities of gold?

Note: This column is dedicated to my new neighbors, Don and Nell Williams.

After nearly 20 years of living on the edge of town and viewing the countryside from our front porch, we've finally got neighbors across the street. That's progress. Houses are built, neighborhoods grow, as do cities, and, as a result, the world is a bigger and better place.

That's good. I believe in change and in the future. I'm not one to wish I was living 100 years ago. Oh yes, I would love the wide open spaces, the prairies untrampled by crowds, the unpolluted streams; yet I'd miss bridging the distance between faraway children by telephone and automobile; I wouldn't cherish the lack of air-conditioning, heating, hot baths and a variety of good foods, and I'd certainly want modern antibiotics if I had an infection.

On the other hand, I value the past, and I wish to protect it. Today, I'm wondering if I should tell my new neighbors of the place where I have lived most of my 50 years. Would they be interested in knowing that between their house and the one west of them rested "the hole," an eight by three foot ditch where my elementary-age children joined other kids on our block (mostly boys) in constructing a fortress against marauding barbarians from distant neighborhoods?

The hole held for over a decade; that is, before the dirt contractor removed it with one sweep of his blade. Yet while his sod may have covered some old GI Joe toys, it will never cover the memories of the boys who played with them there. That's how we protect our pasts--with our memories.

Just across the pasture from us is Canyon's Southeast Park. I remember it before it was a park, before it had any roads going to it, before they deepened the playa lake and manicured the lawns. The lake I remember was wilder, home mostly to ducks, songbirds and an occasional hunter, and, oh yes, a watering hole for a band of horses belonging to some junior-high-age boys who rode there on hot July afternoons in the early '60s. Sometimes we would ditch our saddles and ride bareback through the lake, where the horses inevitably would enjoy a good roll, which would make both them and us muddy and smelly, something both horse and boy seemed to enjoy.

I sometimes wonder what other memories the area holds. Did a cowboy from the T Anchor Ranch once stop here to retrieve a stray calf? Did Commanche Chief Quannah Parker ever visit here, maybe to hunt the large herds of buffalo that once roamed the Llano Estacado? Did Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado pass this way in the 16th century on his search for mythical cities of gold?

As a boy, I imagined all these things. As an adult, I still think about them, often in the early evenings when my wife and I like to walk around the park. Of course, there are more people now. The wild ducks are overshadowed by domesticated white geese, who, in search of a handout, run toward not away from you. And I've never seen a horse in the park; probably it's against some city ordinance.

But the songbirds are still around: meadowlarks, killdeer, mockingbirds, bobwhite quail, mourning dove, robins and others. And the kids are still here, mostly on ball fields and playground equipment, busy with their own dreams, and busy making memories for a whole new generation.