My "patria", I believe, is the backyard of the house I grew up in. It is the setting of most of my fondest childhood memories. It is a spacious backyard with no trees and a ditch. I lived there for eighteen years and I remember everything about it from playing soccer with the neighborhood kids to riding on a lawnmower with my dad.
The backyard has a few things in it. My dad built a deck onto the house when I was about four years old. It was painted a dark cedar color to match our house. He also built some deck chairs that were the same color. I can also remember our bug zapper. It would create a warm blue glow that the bugs just absolutely could not refuse. We would sit outside on spring nights and listen to the cool buzzing sound it would make when a bug would get too close. When the deck had to be torn down due to erosion, we put a garden in its place. We grew watermelons at first. The vine would take up most of the space where the deck went. We would have watermelons all summer long and even have to give some of them away.
My dad also built a playhouse for me. It was the best thing in the world. It was built on stilts about nine feet off the ground. I got into the playhouse by climbing up a rope ladder. There was a patio on the outside of the playhouse building. I can still remember the smell of the new plywood when I would walk through the door. My friends and I would have secret club meetings and hang out there all day. We could get away from everything up there. There was a window on the backside of the playhouse facing the ditch. It scared me a little bit to look out of it because it made me feel like I was going to fall down into the ditch. It has since been torn down, but there are still holes in the ground where the poles went. .
During the summer my dad would let me ride on the lawnmower with him. My mom hated it, and it probably wasn't the smartest thing in the world but it was a thrill nevertheless.