When I was a kid, I used to love playing outside with my friends.

My mom had surprisingly few rules, but a big one was:

DON’T. GO. OFF. THE. BLOCK.

I don’t normally use all caps, but this warrants it.

Because it was that crucial to her, and for multiple valid reasons…

There’s a meandering, curling creek that runs pell-mell through Metro Louisville - it’s called Beargrass Creek.

We lived fairly close to it.

In the broad definition of “fairly close.”

Which means we were a good 4-5 blocks away from where Beargrass passes through a neighborhood that was adjacent to ours…

DON’T. GO. OFF. THE. BLOCK.

One day as I was playing with my friends, they told me wondrous stories of crawdads that lived in Beargrass Creek.

My friends had little buckets.

They intended to catch some crawdads.

At Beargrass Creek.

Which was a good deal past “off the block.”

I had a little bucket in our garage…

I paid for it dearly, but we had glorious adventures at the creek that day.

Finding crawdads.

Playing around the creek.

Playing in the creek.

Perhaps redefining the word “block.”

Sometimes you have to venture off the block.

Sometimes you need to venture off the block.

And almost every time the chance comes up, I WANT to venture off the block.