Week 17: Favorite Place—The Creek

One of my favorite places to hang out while growing up was The Creek. It wasn’t until much later that I learned the creek was called Las Trampas Creek. Its source starts in Lafayette where Happy Valley Creek, Lafayette Creek, and Old Jonas Creek come together. The creek then travels east towards the city of Walnut Creek until it joins the San Ramon Creek to form Walnut Creek. Some parts of the creek have been channeled in downtown Walnut Creek, some parts have been “tamed” with small dams and concrete banks (riprap), and some parts still appear natural, though watershed maps indicate our area was earth constructed. To us, the creek upstream from the dam was pretty wild with tall trees and deep pools.

At the end of our street, Paulson Lane, there was a small diversion dam. In the winter, water flowed over the dam and spilled into a widen plain. In the summer, only a small portion flowed through openings below the top of the dam. The dam top was wide enough that we could walk across. We did this sometimes as a short-cut to the school, but to do this, we had to cut through Mr. Newell’s property, which he didn’t always like. His property was large and full of fruit trees. Newell Avenue is named after him. We attended school on Newell at Parkmead Elementary and Parkmead Intermediate.

Our normal way to walk to school was to walk along Olympic Blvd, which also crossed Las Trampas Creek further upstream. We got to an empty space between two houses that let us cut into Magnolia Way that then took us to the schools, which were adjacent to each other. This is the view of Las Trampas Creek from the Olympic Blvd bridge.

A view of Las Trampas Creek from the Olympic Blvd overcrossing taken by me in 1973

Here the water is a little high, but in the summer, there was lots of sand on the left bank where we found pollywogs and later little frogs. That big yellow bush we thought was bamboo, but it is really arundo, a very invasive plant. Anyway, my brothers made a really cool fort inside which was a great place to hang out. The area where the dam was located at the end of our street was also a nice place to play. The water behind the dam was deep enough to swim in. Sitting along the bank listening to the flow of the water was a peaceful place to hangout away from siblings.

There was also a path along the bank where we could go under the freeway bridge over the creek and make our way to Alpine Road on the other side of the freeway. Our dentist was on Alpine and our dad worked on California Street at LoRay grocery store. It was also a quicker way to get to Las Lomas High School. But I was always a little leery of taking that path by myself, and finding vagrants perhaps living under the freeway.

Anyway, being near the creek, observing birds and other wildlife, is what interested me into studying biological sciences in college. I still like being out of doors observing wildlife and wildflowers and trees. I credit my time hanging out at Las Trampas Creek as a youngster.

This is my fourth year working on this year-long 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

Copyright © 2021 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.