Our Old Swimming Spot
This is where we spent time as kids. When we weren’t needed on the farm we would go here to spend hot afternoons in the water. One of the older boys in the neighborhood would drive his dad’s pickup around and gather a bunch of us kids and we would head to our favorite place. It was called moon valley. Don’t know why that it is just what we knew it by.
There were shallow places for the little kids and deeper spots for the bigger ones to swim. We would pack a lunch or stick some hot dogs in a sack and cook them over a small fire. Sometimes we had bread sometimes not. Every now and then our parents would show up and we would make a day of it.
Many an afternoon was spent dozing in the shade or playing in the water. As we got older we found out it was a favorite place for teenagers to go on Saturday nights. It was a right of passage to be old enough to go in the deep water or dive headfirst off the cliff that ran along the stream.
I was a good swimmer and would have tried out for the school swim team if we hadn’t lived so far out of town. I could dive with the best of them and we would have contests to see who could dive the best.
One Sunday afternoon we were having a contest when after a dive I felt my head hurt. I pulled my swim cap off and blood ran down my face. I must have hit a rock or something floating in the water. We couldn’t get the blood to stop, so we loaded into the back of the truck and headed home. Mom said it needed stitches and took me to the ER. It took 8 stitches to close the cut that looked like a lightning bolt. The nurse on duty didn’t want to call a doctor in on Sunday but mom insisted.
When the doctor got there and said he was glad that he had been called, the nurse was even more upset. She was told to shave around the cut. She shaved the whole top of my head I looked like a monk. Boy was mom mad. My hair was long enough that I could pull it up on top of my head most of the time. As the new hair grew in it itched a lot, by the time school started it had grown out so it wasn’t so noticeable.
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Recently my sister and I went back to Moon Valley. The county has changed it all around and there is a cement slab where the low water crossing used to be. The trees have been cut back so it isn’t as cozy as it was before. But the spot still brings back memories of childhood where on hot summer afternoons we didn’t have care in the world. Do you have a favorite summer spot that just thinking about it takes you to a happier time?
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