The Swimming Holes

I sometimes get lost in thought when I think of the things that made me happy growing up.  Most of them memories are of family activities.  Swimming was one of my favorites. 

The corner pond was always a fun place to go.  I remember when Scott was just a little guy he was playing on the edge and he just started walking out into the pond.  We had to stop him he would have gone in over his head.  I do believe this is where most of us learned to swim.  Dad sure could swim well he could go clear out in the middle and back.   I also remember all us cousins going swimming there.  This is where we met a lot of our friends.  It was defiantly the community swimming hole.   

Then there was Sunshine Dam this was the best place ever we had so much fun trying and sometimes succeeding swimming to the latter and getting under the water fall.  We could jump off where the water was running over or if we were really brave we could dive off and if we were trying to impress someone we could jump off the side, it was much higher.  I remember riding horses to Sunshine one time and we caught a bunch of girls skinny dipping.  As teenage boys we tried to act macho but in reality I think we were all pretty embarrassed.  I think the girls were embarrassed also.  We did leave long enough for them to get dressed.  We tried talking them into staying but it did not work.  We surly were not going to let that stop us from swimming.   I remember it was dark by the time we got home.

I cannot forget Cooks Pond Dad and Mom never really spent much time there but us boys did.  The first time we went there we were just exploring a bit further away from home.  I remember the Sun fish, there were so many we would toss small rocks into the pond and the fish would attack them.  We headed back to the house to get fishing poles.  When we got home Dad asked what we were up too?  We told him about the pond and all the fish.  He kind of shut us down, he asked if we had permission to be down there and if we had permission to fish.  Of course we did not I don’t think we even thought about that.  I think he could see the disappointment in our eyes, so he said (I think I know who owns it lets go give him a call.)  If I remember right Dad talked to Mr. Cook first then he had us ask for Permission.  Mr. Cook was really nice he just asked that we make sure we shut gates and have fun.  Dad let us go back as soon as we got off the phone.  The race was on we ran most all the way.  We could put five or six hooks on cast out and catch five or six fish.  We had so many fish when we got home, we could barely carry them all.  Dad explained to us that they were not good to eat.  But he was wrong we threw that bunch away but the next time we went we just made a fire and cooked them right there at the pond and they were mighty tasty you just had to be careful not to get poked by the spikes.  We had some great times down there.  We spent most of our free time down at Cooks Pond.