Six years ago, we were neighbors with a limitless imaginations. We went out each morning to our own spot, overflowing with excitement. Nobody to worry about, nobody told us what to do, nobody but nature. The sound of birds chirping early in the morning, it felt peaceful and calming. We listened carefully, as the smooth serial sound of the stream brushed along the rocky banks.

Our imagination was running wild, we dreamt of creating a fort by ourselves regarding only nature. We gathered sticks, rocks, and bark, we slowly began to evolve our little spot in the woods behind our houses in a Wisconsin small town. As time went on our little spot began to grow not so little anymore. In an eleven year old's eyes it looked like a palace.

One day as we walked our to our little spot something seemed different. The birds chirp seemed louder and their songs were lighter. As we looked at our fort, we witnessed a family of birds nesting in the walls of our creation. In some sense it gave us pride in our hard work, because we knew a difference was made. From that day on, we continued to build and preserve our fort by any means necessary. We kept it hidden and untold to everyone, we even lied to our friends and family. We ran no risks in terms of jeopardizing our fort.

As we grew older, our mind got caught up in the roar of the twenty first century. We began receiving phones, computers, and other materialistic items. Our fort slowly faded to the back of our memory. Every once in awhile we would think back to it, and reminisce on the memories that were made. We had seemed to move on from our little spot because our interests drifted elsewhere.

Six years later, the day before senior year started, our little spot crossed our minds once more. As if a fading memory was trying to claw its way to be remembered once again. We decided to go back and get one last glimpse of our once prideful fort. We ran into the forest, as if we were little kids again. Suddenly we were put to an abrupt halt, frozen with emotion to what our glossy eyes lay upon. Our fort…It’s gone, destroyed by our generation’s invisible hand. Gazing at the house to where our fort used to be, we realized we had lost our innocence, our selflessness, and our passion for the world around us.

Today, a year later we have learned from this experience. We have developed a better understanding for what truly matters around us. Urbanization is destroying natural wildlife to such an extent that animals are losing their homes constantly. This made us realize we needed to not add to the problem of destroying our environment: recycling, conserving energy, and picking up garbage. By doing this we preserved the memory of our secret spot in the woods, once so wondrous, now destroyed.