I've been fascinated with water as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories involve tromping through mud puddles and wetlands near my childhood home in Federal Way.

I also spent a lot of time during rainstorms "re-engineering" the temporary streams of runoff from the road in front of my house. I would fashion little dams in the channels and try to get the water to heed my wishes, often finding these little streams more unpredictable than I could imagine. These early stream engineering projects were all the more ironic now that I've become involved in stream construction in the name of restoration. Now I get to use big equipment to do so, though.

Hylebos Creek was the first real salmon stream that I ever knew. The creek runs through the Spring Valley Montessori school in Federal Way, where I attended school from the age of 3 to 12.

Those were simpler days, with less anxiety about stranger danger and legal liability. During recess, we were free to play in the woods surrounding the school, or at the stream's edge. Often my friends and I came back from recess, with mud up to our mid-calves. The teachers considered it the price of letting children follow their curiosity about the natural world.

I found myself captivated by Hylebos Creek, this ribbon of water that was ceaseleslly coming from someplace and going somewhere else. More than that, the creek was alive. It was full of strange insects that actually lived underwater!

And the salmon! Every fall, not long after the new school year began, the salmon would return. The stream was in sight of the playground and in those first few weeks of school we had learned to keep an eye on the stream. When one of us saw the first telltale dorsal fin knifing its way upstream an excited shout would ring out and we'd run to the edge of the stream and watch as that first salmon or two were inevitably joined by crowds of anadromids. At the peak of the return, the 10-foot wide channel would literally be full bank to bank of tails and fins pushing their carriers onward.

These were not small fish. They were Chinook and coho (and later in the winter chum) grown fat on four years at sea. I was amazed then at their size, that they lived in "my stream."

I knew these were the same fish that I watched as fingerlings in the stream, but how they got so large seemed an impossible transformation. Magical. There was always magic in the water.

I grew up and became interested in other things, as these things happen. It was my children who brought me back to Hylebos Creek. When we enrolled them at Spring Valley in 1993 I saw what had become of the creek. Floods had ravaged the reach where I used to watch Chinook and coho salmon slide by towards the next generation. In the fall, very few fish returned. I began searching for ways to help repair the stream.

It was an old guardian of the stream that brought me full circle, back to Hylebos Creek, though. And though it was a case of mistaken identity that connected us, I was glad for it.

Ilene Marckx, one of the Friends' founders was an avid reader of the Seattle Weekly, where my articles were appearing. The then news editor Eric Scigliano had recently written a wonderful account of the West Hylebos Wetlands and Ilene's efforts to protect this boggy beauty.

Ilene tracked me down (she was very good at doing that) through the Weekly and invited me to visit the park. Even though I'd lived my entire life in Federal Way, I'd never been aware of the wetlands before. Like most people, I was awestruck and in love.

Ilene often called me Eric, and I'm pretty sure that in her final years, she often confused us - which I was happy to have her do, since Eric is a vastly more talented writer than I am. She insisted I become the editor of the Hylebos Highlights (again I'm certain because she thought she was getting Eric Scigliano) and that was the beginning for me.

I joined the board and as we expanded our mission and began implementing programs and hiring staff, I was asked to become the Friends' Executive Director.

Now here's a fact I don't often tell people, but years ago, after leaving the nonprofit field I had decided that I didn't want to work in the nonprofit sector anymore. Been there. done that. But here was a chance to help Hylebos Creek - the little unassuming stream that taught me about the mystery of salmon and living beauty of water. It was a chance to improve the community I'd lived my entire life in - that part of the community that brought beauty, clean air and clean water to all of us.

How could I not say yes?