It was just a little round lake. In fact, its name was changed from Pickerel to Little Mirror sometime in my late childhood. The swimming area wasn't big, but large enough to attract kids from miles around for swimming lessons each summer.
Lessons were always held early in the summer because I recall it was more than chilly during the first lessons of the day. And it was still weedy until, at the end of two weeks, all the swimmers had trampled or dislodged most of the weeds and muck in the swimming area. Yuck! It's no wonder kids these days prefer pools.
Carter is signed up for two sessions of swimming lessons this summer so he can hopefully get his swimming level caught up to kids his age. He gets to swim at the beautiful fitness and aquatic center in Iola. It has a shallow pool for beginners, a diving board, plus a twisty slide.
He's a pretty lucky kid. Thanks to swimming lessons AND Kidz Camp, he gets to swim twice a day during the week! I'd even say he was spoiled.
I can remember begging our mom to let us swim. I mean the lake is RIGHT THERE. We didn't even need a ride! It was so unfair to see kids we knew head down to the swim and we couldn't go. Whine, whine, cry, cry.
There were a few undesirable characteristics of the lake, though: Swimmer's itch (which I won't go into detail about); swimming with nibbling fishes and turtles (and occasional fear of snapping turtles); and the barrel.
The barrel was like a 50-gallon drum that was placed in the water years prior so we could use it as a "diving board." We'd jump off of it but couldn't really "dive" because it was placed out far enough from shore so its top was below the surface.
Eventually the barrel got old and rusty and I ended up cutting my foot on it one summer. I had to have 3 stitches and stay out of the lake for a few weeks. That was no fun, but we got a new barrel after that so more summer fun was to be had.
Today is officially the first day of summer -- which has always been my favorite season. Thanks to Kids Camp, swimming lessons and a REAL diving board, I think it will be Carter's, too!
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1 comment:
This is so freaky. I was just talking to some people at work about how the lake across the road from our house used to be better. Actually they were talking about toxic lakes. And it started with me saying that the neighbors cows used to come down to the water and there was a fence in the water so they could only go in so far. Anyways, we had to occasionally watch for the floating cowpie. I was talking about how we used to have "the barrell" and how it was so much fun. Now, that area of the lake isn't even accessable. Maybe it would have been considered "toxic" by today's standards. But, I wouldn't trade all the fun memories we had swimming in that lake. The first thing we always did was search for the barrell. then the fun would begin. Thanks so much Byn for all the memories. R#8
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