A classic teen hangout spot in my area was “the creek” (that is, the San Francisquito Creek, which divides Palo Alto from Menlo Park). There’s a place to access the creek bed (which, because this is California, is dry for most of the year) from the neighborhood and you go down there to hang out in the shade of the trees and smoke weed (commonly referred to as “creekin’ it”). Never got in trouble there although there was certainly some risk.

Otherwise, Stanford campus was always a good place to hang out and walk around. I didn’t do a lot of loitering as a teen; we would more often be walking or driving around aimlessly.

Reading on the roof of my house.
Reading on the back of my horse.

The beach. Smashing pennies on the train tracks. Sandy bare feet and Big Gulps.
I honestly don’t know how no one got tetanus walking around the train tracks with bare feet. Guess our shots were up to date?

On the roof of the parking structure of our old apartment complex. Holding in our giggling as people parked below.

In the model homes, pretending we were adults coming to buy an apartment.

Behind the church, laying on the grass watching clouds collide with stained glass.

In college, I would ride the bus or BART in loops. Sketching strangers and making up stories in my head about what their lives were like.

Whenever I was feeling melancholy, I used to go up to this local columbarium. Not religious. And have always felt at odds with a lot of the rituals around death. But I’ve always felt very peaceful there.

Younger than age 14:

Reading up in the big pine tree in the front yard, sap and all.
But mostly down by the creek, in the woods, in pastures, etc.

Same here. Grabbing electric fences that weren’t on when you went in!!!

%P

The Student Union Building on the University of Idaho (Moscow) campus.

We had one or two special trees which we knew how to climb to get to a comfortable branch. That was around 60 years ago. We would sit there unobserved and far from the adult world of rules and clocks and homework. The equivalent nowadays is probably my computer desk and my padded computer chair.

This was about 60 years ago. There was a spot on the river, off the dirt road that nobody ever used. A tree with a perfect fork overhanging the quiet part of the river’ s bend.

Now that tree is gone and that spot is someone’s backyard, and I’m sure they’ll lose it back to the river someday.