Jonathan Meyer.

One of the most dreaded places for middle school Jonathan was the pool hill. No matter by foot or bike, getting up that hill seemed to be the vain of my preteen existence.

My first taste of freedom was amazing. Mom finally said it’s fine to go ride bikes around town with your friends. Things were amazing, until my little group had to pedal up that dang hill. If we wanted to ride to the pool or get across the highway and go eat subs at Subway, we had to go up that steep, never ending hill.

There was a day I remember in sixth grade where we were riding bikes in the morning and we ran into a graveside service happening at the cemetery on our right. Without knowing what to do we all got off our bikes and walked them the rest of the way up the hill, as not to disturb the somber scene to our right.

We giggled after that, feeling bad but not knowing what else to do. It was especially funny that my dad was working the graveside service. He spotted me nearly instantly.

Later on, in my high school cross country days, we started doing workouts on the pool hill. Running up the hill from the park before doing a loop around the cemetery. An interesting yet excruciating workout. We’d do this dreaded practice a few times a season with each being pretty feared.

I hope that for many generations to come, kids fear that same hill the way I did and frankly still do while I’m running. There’s something special about landmarks that we all encounter and have an unspoken respect for.

Until next time, I’m Just Jonathan.