We just called it “the field.”

The path east took us to grade school. We went west once in Grade 9. That’s when you knew you were really grown up.

It’s amazing what nostalgia a patch of grass, thistles, milkweed and trees can evoke.

But looking at the field, across the street from the Thornhill house where I grew up, brings back a montage of memories: hide and seek, the forts, solemnly burying every bird my cat would bring home as “gifts” in a little graveyard with my best friend, Alli Scott.

We would look for Alli’s dog, Kandy, in that field too, every time she ran away, tears and drama all over our faces, convinced that this was the time that the black lab was gone for good.

Sometimes, we would hide in the field from Buster, the big Great Dane who terrorized the corner where Paul St. and Vintage Lane joined and the field began. There were only two things that Buster hated — rocks and Alli’s mom — and without them we were defenceless.

Alli once saw a flasher hiding in the trees and then was nervous of the field for a few days. I was jealous she was getting so much attention by adults who whispered and furrowed their brows.

When the grass got really long, the field’s owners would mow an elaborate maze and we would have picnics inside or get lost, or just pretend to.

There was also some solo sobbing under trees, like the day the cool kids who wore running shoes when it rained mocked my knee-high white rubber boots. I so wanted to have soaking wet cool feet.

There was the first kiss. Well, maybe not the very first kiss; that came in Grade 4 or 5 and involved a party where parents were upstairs and we were downstairs and I’m pretty sure there was a bottle that spun and a closet, although that memory may be getting confused with an after-school television special I once saw. Anyway, I’m sure the boy’s name was Lino and I think he was disappointed he had to kiss me.

But the field was the backdrop for the real kiss, sometime in Grade 9 after a cross-country running meet.

Nothing is more vivid, though, than the annual Victoria Day neighbourhood bash at the Honsbergers’, where there were chips and Nanaimo bars and fireworks.

John Honsberger lived in a pretty country house right beside the field, so technically we were playing in his backyard. When we lived in Thornhill, my parents always fretted Honsberger would sell the field to contractors and we would stare into condo balconies.

But Honsberger was determined to keep it a green space and had tried decades ago to donate the property to the city of Markham, only if they could guarantee it would be kept as a field. But they could not, so he held on.

Finally now, at the age of 91, he has found a way.

Haven’t thought about the Honsbergers or the field in years, having morphed over the past two decades into one of those urbanites who bikes to work and sneers at commuters on the Don Valley Parkway in rush hour.

But on Saturday, with my parents and niece Kelly, 8, who is the age I was when I moved to the area, we went back to the field for a special tribute to Honsberger.

We heard how he bought the field and adjoining property in 1952, when Thornhill’s population was little more than 1,000, the roads were dirt, and his hydro bill was addressed to the “fourth house from Yonge St.”

Never knew Honsberger’s personal history, either, how he left his University of Toronto studies to serve as a gunner in World War II, how he took part in D-Day, returning home to Canada in 1949 to become a lawyer (he retired last year, age 90), how he raised his three children together with his first wife, affectionately nicknamed “Gummy,” and then upon her death with Nancy, who also passed away in 1999.

He was civic-minded, too, serving for 20 years as a board trustee in York Region and playing an influential role in creating Thornlea Secondary School, which was avant-garde in its time for being less rigid than other high schools, supporting creativity and social causes. Two of my elder sisters went there and they got to call their teachers by their first names.

Honsberger has created a lot of legacies, and the field is just one, ensuring through a rather complicated real estate deal that Markham must keep it as a green space. He has donated five benches, which are dedicated to those who once walked the field’s paths, including Gummy and Nancy. His daughter Joan, who now lives in the family home beside the field, said Saturday at the tribute, “You can never make more land. We had great real estate calendars, but we put them in the garbage and he saved it all for you guys.”

And as Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti added: “We not only look forward to celebrating our past, but we look forward to creating spaces for the future generation.”

And so as of this weekend, the field became John Honsberger Field, and shall remain a patch of grass, thistles, milkweed and trees.

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Kids can take the path east to grade school. Go west and you’ve grown up.

Visit, and remember what it’s like to be young again.