Ep. 135: THIS COUNTRY LIFE - Swimming Holes

Swimming holes. For me, it was an afternoon activity when the chores were done, or if I was hot and happened to be conveniently close to enough water to get in creeks, ponds, lakes in the river where the swimming pools of my youth and a swimming party could break out. It just about it any time during one of any adventures or fishing trips me and my friends found ourselves involved in. I'm going to tell you all about them, what constitutes a good swimming hole, and why they're imported.

But first I'm going to tell you a story. It was towards the end of the work week in the summertime, and as was our routine, my Dad and I were down to Mount Albill on the Slaine River. We were spending the night and it caught a mess of fish that morning, cleaned and fixed them for dinner. Remember that's the noon meal down here. We were stated at Uncle Dobb in ain't Avis's camp. Now, let me unpack that for you. Uncle Dob wasn't actually related to me, and

neither was ain't Abvis. DoD wasn't even his real name. His actual name was Troy Alvin Matthew Atkins, and I have no idea where that nickname came from. I'm sure it's a good story, and if I ever find out, I'll let y'all know. Anyway, he married ain't Avis Irene Fry about one hundred years ago. They were close family friends of my family, whose land had join one another, and had been neighbors since my dad was a baby. We were all very close, as most neighbors were back then,

but ain't Avis's family. The Fries had a camp on the river that was built high off the ground on poles in the nineteen fifties. In nineteen sixty eight, six Fry family members, including in laws like Uncle Dob, poonted up one hundred and twenty five dollars each to buy this camp. That's seven hundred and fifty dollars, and that's equal to about sixty five hundred today. But I'll tell you, for the members made there and are still being made there,

it would have been a bargain at any price. It gives me a lot of joy to say that the Fry family still owns it, along with my whole family spent countless hours and nights down there, hunting, fishing, and just visiting with one another. The boat ramp that is an easy stones throwaway would eventually be named after my dad, and both places were the jumping off spot or the

rally point for many expeditions involving our family. While we usually had several representatives of each family there, on this occasion it was just me and Dad. We'd gotten there the night before and was on the river just after daylight fishing for our dinner, and like I said, we'd done pretty good, so good in fact, that while we were eating, Dad said he'd take me down to the swimming hole, which was a half a mile down the river after we finished eating, cleaning up, and resting for

a spell. I knew that meant taking a nap. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I was in elementary school and rest to me back then was slowing down enough to catch my breath and get a drink of water. It dang sure didn't involve anything that took over five minutes, especially a nap. Plus, it was hot and I loved to swim in the river. When

the river was right. That shoal that formed a swimming hole gradually sloped upward as you motored toward it downriver, and it was shaded in the afternoon along our side, with a nice sandy bank and a sandbar to sit and play on. It was impossible for me to stay out of it, and many times when we made our way through there fishing, I just up and bail out of the boat. Dad would pull up on the bank in the shade and join me, or just let me

swim awhile before we carried on fishing again. I couldn't wait. What better way the top of the morning to catching fish, cleaning and eating a belly full of them than by cooling off in the swimming hole. There were muscles to be dug and open looking for pearls. Tracks on the sandbar to be identified and talked about, and flat rocks to skip. I didn't have time for a nap, but no argument I made was going to work. So after the kitchen was cleaned, we headed off to the sleeping room.

We left the kitchen and walked through the original bedroom and passed the bathroom and into the sleeping room, both of which had been added in nineteen seventy four from lumber scraps from a family member's old home place that had been built in the eighteen hundreds. Lots of history in that structure. I was about to add some more. When you walked into the sleeping room, there was a big bed on the right, perpendicular to you as you entered,

in bunks against the far walls. In front of those bunks, aimed at the bed was a big, industrial sized two hundred and twenty volt metal fan, like the kind you'd see in a chicken house. I wonder where it came from, anyway.

It was housed in and a square wooden frame that sat on the floor like a humongous box fan, and when you turned it on, it could literally blow the hat off your head or cut it off along with your head if you happen to poke either in through the backside where there wasn't any chicken wire to keep you out of it. There wasn't any air conditioning back there, so the windows were up, letting what air was turning

outside in through the screens. And there may have been a few mosquitoes buzzing around in there, but a bald eagle couldn't have made any headway against the wind generated by that fan. We stripped down to our boxers, and he put me on the fan side so I could feel the air. Buddy Reeves and Buddy Reeves two point zero laying down on top of the sheets on that big old bed, but only one of us was looking forward to that nap. Dad, let's go swimming. We'll go directly,

lay down and go to sleep. I ain't sleepy, Hush, now, close your eyes. I laid down and closed him, But all I could see was that swimming hole. I stared at the ceiling. I stared out the window. I checked the clock on the table. I stared at the ceiling some more. I watched the leaves in the trees out the window, barely moving against the wind. It felt like three hours had passed. When I checked the clock again, and I was disappointed, realizing it ain't been fifteen minutes.

Time travel slow for a boy wanting to go outside. I stared back at the ceiling, and then I heard my dad snore a little bit. I looked at him, and I saw how easy and rhythmic he was breathing. Man, that's the good sleep, the sleep that you wake up from feeling fresh and happy, the kind that I look forward to now, But at that time it was standing in the way of me going swimming. Now, what happened next can only be described as an out of body experience.

I can see it now, played out of my head, like those folks that die in the operating room and see themselves above everything that's going on, only to realize that it's not their time to go, and suddenly they're backing their body, conscious and looking around with an incredible

story to tell. I watched my dad sleeping so peacefully, his farmer tan arms were brown as biscuits compared to his belly that was as white as the sheets we were laid on, and I wondered, I wondered how hard I'd had to punch him in the belly to get my fist in there. Up to my elbow. Now, for the life of me, I have no idea where that thought came from or the gumption I had to find out. I slowly raised up, making sure I didn't wake him up. The racket from the fan had drowned out any squeaks

from the bed spring, and he was comatose. I clearly remember bawling up my fist and looking at it, and then looking at his belly, and decided on whether or not I should do it. His arms and legs shot straight up like a dying roach, and his eyes bugged out of his head like Yosemite SAMs did whenever bugs Bunny dropped an anvil on his foot. I knocked all the wind out of him, and it took him several

gups of air for him to start breathing again. I still don't know why I did it, but I knew the safest place I could be at that point of my life was anywhere he wasn't. And when my feet hit the floor, I was running as fast as I possibly could, and regretting the decision I'd considered a good idea just a while ago. I didn't even make it out of the room before he hemmed me up. There was no escape, and I realized right then and there that my daddy was going to kill me, and I

deserved it. He said, boy, I told you to lay down and go to sleep. I beat him to the bed and I jumped over next to the wall so he'd be on the fan side where it was coolest. It was the least I could do. He didn't whoop me. He laid down, and after a minute I squeaked out, I'm sorry. Dad. He reached over and patted me on the arm and said, close your eyes, and I did. In about an hour, he woke me up and he took me swimming, just like he said he would. Swimming

holes sometimes they'll make you lose your mind. So if you're wondering about up to my wrist, that's how far it got in his belly. It all happened pretty fast, but that's just how it happened. Now. What makes a good swimming hole, really all you need is a body of water big enough to crawl into. But just like anything else, some are just better than others. There was a small creek that ran through and along the northern

edge of our farm. It was a magical place that was spring fed and where we'd cleaned out our swimming hole, and that water was cold as a steel wedge. In the heat of the summer. There were big vines hanging from the trees, and we cut them with a hatchet or a pocket knife and swung from one side to the other until we pulled them slap out of the tree, which never seemed to happen anywhere but when you were midstream, especially if you weren't planning on swimming that day and

just trying to cross the creek. Todd and Bob rode the same school bus that I did, and Bob lived just over a quarter of a mile from it, but Tod was almost four miles away by the road, but we knew it short cut through the woods along some old lanes and forgotten roads and trails that made it a little over a mile and a mile that wasn't no step for a stepper. We worked several days on a swimming hole below what we called goat House Hill.

And before I was born, my and Paul raised goats along with chickens and cows, and he had built a house for them to stay in. My mama talked about the goats climbing all over that structure, and it was all gone by the time I started making tracks over there, but the name remained. Below the hill where the goats used to be was a creek, and where we'd made our swimming hole, getting the big rocks out and keeping

it clean from sticks and broken vines. We were all three knocking around the barn one summer day, and my grandpa told me that he'd give us a dollar if we could find a cow that was missing. Thirty three and the third cents each was incentive enough, so off we went. We played and looked forward and called that cow, but couldn't find her, and eventually we wound up down

by the swimming hole below goat House hill. Well, we might as well go in swimming since we're here, so we peeled off our clothes and before Khaki lickors behind in the creek, we went chunking mud and laughing and playing, and I don't know how long we'd been swimming when Todd asked, what's that smell? Now? I hadn't smelled it until he said something, but when he did, it was unmistakable to anyone that had ever smelled a dead cow. We started slipping up the creek. Against the current, all

naked is the day we were born. In thirty yards around a short bend in the creek, we found our cow deader than disco, laying in the creek we were standing in and only moments before, had been swimming in up to our ears. We took off out of there like we'd see a monster, grabbed our clothes, climbed out on the bank, got dressed, and took off for higher ground. We found my grandpa and told him where the cow was. He didn't even ask why all our hair was wet.

I'm sure he probably knew, but he gave us each a dollar, which was a pleasant surprise and wiped all that trauma away that we'd just been through. After all that work we did cleaning and making that swimming hole, we never went back to that spot. Swimming creeks and swimming holes were a diamond dozen and it wasn't so much the activity or the place that was imported, I

know now. It was the instance of our youth and the joy we shared in a wholesome environment, just to enjoying each other's company and having fun, whether we were fishing in the water or swimming in Warren, Arkansas has a ymcaight and a big swimming pool. At one time, and it may still be it was the smallest community in the nation that had such a facility. I'd get a ride to town or stay at my grandma and my grandpa's house in town and go in swimming with

my friends at the wye. But it just wasn't the same as swimming in the country. In the country, we allowed running on the bank, horseplay and peeling in the pool, all activities that were frowned upon by the lifeguards at the White ninety five percent of the time. And we were swimming in the country. We were swimming in water with current, and all you had to do was announce your intentions and move away downstream from the crowd and

let it rip. I never got in a pool then, or see one now that I don't look at it as one big commode. Come on, Chlorine, do your thing now. There are drawbacks to swimming in homemade swimming holes. A time that comes to mind was with those same two rascals that helped me find that dead cow, and we met up with the intentions to go fishing in a pond over next to Tod's grandpa's farm. It didn't belong

to any of us. We just helped the folks fishing that did on it when they weren't around to tell us no. Anyway, we made our way in the heat of the day over to the small pond and we started fishing. We noticed the turtle bobbing up and down out in the middle, but we didn't think much about it, except he stayed in the same place like he was hung on something with a fish not biden. I decided to swim out, catch that turtle and bring him up

on the bank to see what his problem was. So, having been issued my birthday suit and swimming suit on the same day in March in nineteen sixty six, I got down to both of them and in the water, I went like a country boy. Jacques Cousto, Todd and Bob both had enough sense to wait on the bank while I performed my mission to mercy on that bobing turtle,

and man, am I glad they did. I swam out toward that turtle and was treading water within the arm's reach of him when he bobbed back to the service and I reached and grabbed him by the back of the shell. He immediately tried to swim away from me, but I was an expert turtle catcher and turned and headed for the bank and Todd and Bob. I didn't make it a foot when that turtle pulled me back with a force that confused me. It felt like he

was tied to something. So I turned back towards him, and I pulled him up out of the water, and I saw he had a trot line hook in his mouth, and I was swimming all around it. How I didn't get hung up it myself and drowned was a true miracle. I turned the turtle loose, and I yelled, it's a trot line, and swam to the bank as fast as I could. We found both ends of it, cut it and pulled it and the turtle up on the bank.

We cut that turtle loose and pulled the trot line that had the remnants of catfish that had been caught and left for the turtles. Deed, someone else had been helping them. Folks fish that pond too, but they wasn't doing it right. You got to be responsible and run your lines regularly. Some bozo had wasted some good catfish by not checking his line. Fortunately, three adolescent trespassers came

along and saved the day. We wrapped it up and jobbed the hooks down in a stick and left it hanging on a limb by where one end that had been tied to the bank. It was. It wasn't going to hook anyone or anything else, and it wasn't ours, so we couldn't keep it whoever left it out there

or to be ashamed for doing so. Anyway, if you knew the country swimming holes, be mindful that there are some advantages to swimming in those big commodes in town where the lifeguards are probably not going to encounter any turtles or trot lines. But pee good luck with that one.

I promise to tell you why these places are important, but I guess I can only tell you why I think they're important, And maybe I'm kind of contradicting my first thought about how a particular place wasn't as key a component as the activity that I shared with family or friends. Morobey, Arkansas, on the Washingta River was at the south end of Bradley County when I was sixteen and old enough to legally drive. I'd actually been driving

for seven years before that, but that's another story. My friends and I would pile into each other's cars and trucks, and in forty five minutes we would have crossed the river on a ferry and driven down to a big sandy beach at Romeo Shoals to swim and just be kids out on her own. My lifelong friend Wade man and hollered at me the other day and reminded me of a time that we spent down there at the

river between two a day football practices for hydration. We had made some poor choices that day, and football practice that afternoon in August in Arkansas was not pleasant of all the days for the Booster Club to bring watermelons to have after practice. It wasn't a lot of boys eating watermelon, at least not the folks that had been

on the river that day. But Wade mentioned that day to me, and immediately my mind was flooded with a ton of memories associated with people in that particular place, some of the best friends I've ever had, and I can see us all together in that place and others

during the summers of our youth. I enjoy seeing snapshots of people, some I don't even know, recreating pictures with folks in the same poses, sometimes in the same places from days gone by, and the faces may change and they may age over time, but the joy man usually remains. The places I talked about today are mostly all still there, but some of the people are gone now and live only when I think of those places and the time

shared with them. So yeah, places are important. The names of those spots are the folders where we store all the pictures and the whole movies that we play in our heads and our hearts. Whenever they're mentioned, make sure you got plenty of room on your hard drive for the important files. No Wi Fi is required, and you can watch them anytime you want. Sometimes after a call from an old friend. That's your challenge this week, think about a place and the folks you shared something special with,

and it doesn't have to be from years ago. I talked about things this week that happened a long time ago, but I'm still thinking about a wonderful supper that Alexis and I shared with new friends just last week. You know, the years may sweeten the wine, but the grape it was pretty good when it came off the vine. Thank you for listening. If you can share it with someone you think might enjoy it too. Ratings and reviews are always helpful in getting our show out to other folks

that would like it. I thank y'all so much for listening this week. This is Brent Reeves sign it off. Y'all be careful