Childhood best friend

Hello,
I'm writing an essay on my childhood best friend.. Will you please critique it for me? Also, this needs to be 1 page long in size font 10 arial...
9/18/08

Comp. 1

Audience: General Public




My childhood best friend





When I was a child, my best friend was Derek M. Derek lived a couple of houses away from me. We did fun things such staying up all night, riding bikes, and playing basketball. Our favorite thing to do was to jump around for hours on the trampoline while listening to the radio. Dereks sister, Amber, was older than us and she would sometimes drive us to places like Wal-Mart and Target. Derek and I thought we were so cool because nobody else really had an older sibling to drive them around town. My birthday is in June, and Dereks is in May so we would often have pool parties on our birthdays. Growing up, there was a baseball field that was only a few blocks away from our neighborhood. When the weather was nice, Derek and I would get some friends together and play baseball. Playing ball was a good way for us to stay out of trouble. However, going on long bike rides is what we did more than anything. As we got older, Derek and I often went to parties, played cards and went hunting. When we were teenagers, my most memorable moment with Derek was when me and a couple of other friends decided to put toothpaste in Dereks mouth just before he woke up. We all thought that it was funny, including Derek. During my sophomore year in high school, Derek and his family moved away to Denver . They had to move there because of his fathers job. To say the least, I was disappointed and upset but we still kept in touch. Over the summer breaks. Derek and his family would fly over and stay for a few weeks at a time. To this day, Derek and I still talk to each other about once a week. As once can see, Me and Derek M have been best friends for a long time.