Summer Swimming
Summer Swimming
What beautiful weather we have been having these last few weeks. Summer is on its way. When we were kids we started testing the temperature of the water in our swimming holes sometime in March. The grass was greening, and wild plum tree buds were swelling, surely the cold had drained from the pool. Still cold? Hoo boy, you bet. Even April, with the bluebonnet’s flowering, showed little improvement in the feel of the water. Some of the bigger boys, to show their bravery, would jump in. We noted they just as quickly jumped out and hurriedly dressed. The Merry Month of May came with the glory of spring and the water began feeling less painful. But marvelous June soon came and we knew our time had arrived. The rest of the summer our address was Old Man Wengren’s stock tank.
Now when I say swimming holes I didn’t mean swimming pools. We did not even know what a swimming pool was. A place to swim was usually a stock tank up in someone’s pasture. Our favorite was Mr. Wengren’s. It was hidden away from any road by live oak, and cedar trees and other brush. That allowed us to swim the way young boys were meant to swim, in the buff. The stock tank covered at least half of an acre and was plenty deep. The dam holding the water back was tall, grassy and plenty broad for us to get a running start to jump in with a big splash. We kept one kid on ‘look-out’ for Mr. Wengren, for he would sometimes come chase us out. When the look-out saw him coming we would grab our clothes and scatter like rabbits into the trees and brush. I think that added to the adventure of the swim; forbidden fruit. And I think he may have gotten a kick from watching us run in all directions.
But the water was not as you might expect. It was a light creamy tan tank of water, somewhat the color of fresh milk from Mother’s cow. You could not see into the water at all. And some times the smell was not all that good either, but it was water and we could swim in it. I have seen stock tanks in other areas that were reddish, and stock tanks that were grayish. But our swimming tanks were all a beautiful creamy tan, with a muddy bottom, and we liked it that way. We had heard of pools in the big cities where the bottoms were cement and the water crystal clear. I’m not sure we even believed those stories.
Well we all grew up and went our ways, chasing our various fortunes. Some of us found them, some of us didn’t. I fear most of us found the cement pools with clear water really did exist. To bad. However, this summer, as I am driving around and I find a stock tank just the right color, with a muddy bottom, I might just stop, crawl over the fence, and take myself a real swim.