I loved riding my bike on grass paths. The pedal highway created by kids rolling through a field to our destination.

In an instant I was in a world of adventure, gliding over short hills and dips. In worn spots I looked back to see if I was leaving a swirl of dust.

A kid comes alive riding his bike. In his mind his Schwinn could be a motorcycle, a boat, a truck, or a car, even an airplane.

We moved to Heaven when we left the city neighborhood where I grew up to a new life on a farm.

We didn’t grow anything, but we had horses, a barnyard, a pasture, and a hay mow with a rope. The mow became the place of endless fun playing tag, building tunnels and swinging from one side of the barn to the other.

Next to the house was a grass lane, leading out to a fenced twenty acres. Driving our old Chevy Bel Air station wagon out to get firewood or empty the trash was my new adventure. It wasn’t a tractor, but I was still driving on grass.

I always notice where farm machinery has worn a path from barns to the fields.

Church campgrounds provided lots of opportunities to ride on a station wagon tailgate on grass.

Lots of folks gathered from near and far for a week of two-services-day church combined with sports and ice cream.

Nothing captures a kid’s imagination like riding on a grass road so narrow it feels like he’s being swallowed by the trees.

At the last moment, the car breaks free and he sees a beautiful lake sparkling under a perfectly sunny sky. He’s going to be there for a week with nothing to do but fish from a rowboat and ride a Honda 50 anywhere the grass paths will take him.

I still like driving on the grass, even if it’s just to park my Silverado or mow the grass with my John Deere.