Henry Jones Jr.

As a little boy, I lived over near what is now Market of Choice in Eugene, on Green Acres road. Before civilization caught up to that edge of town, there was nothing in that part of town except for what I think may have been a Costco, but I think it may have been called something else. The very far edge of the field had a Jafco, and next door to that was a GI Joes. I remember very little actually about living over there, but the things I do remember mostly surround that field.

The first thing that comes to mind is the explorer that such a large field turned me into. Underneath all of that land is a collection of storm drains and I know for a fact that they weren't always closed off. I've been inside them and walked from one end to the other. Being a silly little kid, I was always afraid of getting trapped in it by someone closing off the other end.

Right in the middle of what is now Walmart's parking lot, I recall a hill that was cut into by the expansion of the area, and one side of it formed a cliff that was just dirt and rocks. By pulling out rocks, you could create for yourself a handhold or even a toe hold as you scaled up the side. It couldn't have been more than 10 feet tall, but when you're little, climbing to the top made you into Sir Edmond Hilary.

Henry Jones Jr. Who is he? Most people remember him by two other names, first is Dr. Jones, spoken with the heavy accent of a young chinese boy, but most commonly he might be referred to as Indiana Jones. I bring him up in reminiscing about my childhood because those memories made me into an explorer, they took me out on an adventure. In my later life, I lost what it was that made me excited to go out and explore but have recently become acquainted with it again.

I borrowed my nephew's copy of the Indiana Jones series, and its unfortunate that he doesn't really understand what he is looking at. Dr. Jones had freedom to go on an adventure. One of my favorite parts of any of the movies is when they show a map and he is travelling from place to place. Instead of showing that he is bored and sitting on a plane, you see an image of the plane flying and a red line connecting the various ports of call. He was on the go, sometimes half way around the world.

It is my hope that someday when I'm looking at a map I don't see a lot of places that I wish that I had had time to go, I want to look at all the places that I've been able to travel to and remember what it's like to explore something on a grander scale than the storm drain under the local shopping center.