Speaker 1: Welcome to this country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two to teach you.
Speaker 1: Swimming holes. For me, it was an afternoon activity when
Speaker 1: the chores were done, or if I was hot and
Speaker 1: happened to be conveniently close to enough water to get
Speaker 1: in creeks, ponds, lakes in the river where the swimming
Speaker 1: pools of my youth and a swimming party could break out.
Speaker 1: It just about it any time during one of any
Speaker 1: adventures or fishing trips me and my friends found ourselves
Speaker 1: involved in. I'm going to tell you all about them,
Speaker 1: what constitutes a good swimming hole, and why they're imported.
Speaker 1: But first I'm going to tell you a story. It
Speaker 1: was towards the end of the work week in the summertime,
Speaker 1: and as was our routine, my Dad and I were
Speaker 1: down to Mount Albill on the Slaine River. We were
Speaker 1: spending the night and it caught a mess of fish
Speaker 1: that morning, cleaned and fixed them for dinner. Remember that's
Speaker 1: the noon meal down here. We were stated at Uncle
Speaker 1: Dobb in ain't Avis's camp. Now, let me unpack that
Speaker 1: for you. Uncle Dob wasn't actually related to me, and
Speaker 1: neither was ain't Abvis. DoD wasn't even his real name.
Speaker 1: His actual name was Troy Alvin Matthew Atkins, and I
Speaker 1: have no idea where that nickname came from. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's a good story, and if I ever find out,
Speaker 1: I'll let y'all know. Anyway, he married ain't Avis Irene
Speaker 1: Fry about one hundred years ago. They were close family
Speaker 1: friends of my family, whose land had join one another,
Speaker 1: and had been neighbors since my dad was a baby.
Speaker 1: We were all very close, as most neighbors were back then,
Speaker 1: but ain't Avis's family. The Fries had a camp on
Speaker 1: the river that was built high off the ground on
Speaker 1: poles in the nineteen fifties. In nineteen sixty eight, six
Speaker 1: Fry family members, including in laws like Uncle Dob, poonted
Speaker 1: up one hundred and twenty five dollars each to buy
Speaker 1: this camp. That's seven hundred and fifty dollars, and that's
Speaker 1: equal to about sixty five hundred today. But I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: for the members made there and are still being made there,
Speaker 1: it would have been a bargain at any price. It
Speaker 1: gives me a lot of joy to say that the
Speaker 1: Fry family still owns it, along with my whole family
Speaker 1: spent countless hours and nights down there, hunting, fishing, and
Speaker 1: just visiting with one another. The boat ramp that is
Speaker 1: an easy stones throwaway would eventually be named after my dad,
Speaker 1: and both places were the jumping off spot or the
Speaker 1: rally point for many expeditions involving our family. While we
Speaker 1: usually had several representatives of each family there, on this
Speaker 1: occasion it was just me and Dad. We'd gotten there
Speaker 1: the night before and was on the river just after
Speaker 1: daylight fishing for our dinner, and like I said, we'd
Speaker 1: done pretty good, so good in fact, that while we
Speaker 1: were eating, Dad said he'd take me down to the
Speaker 1: swimming hole, which was a half a mile down the
Speaker 1: river after we finished eating, cleaning up, and resting for
Speaker 1: a spell. I knew that meant taking a nap. I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly how old I was, but I was
Speaker 1: in elementary school and rest to me back then was
Speaker 1: slowing down enough to catch my breath and get a
Speaker 1: drink of water. It dang sure didn't involve anything that
Speaker 1: took over five minutes, especially a nap. Plus, it was
Speaker 1: hot and I loved to swim in the river. When
Speaker 1: the river was right. That shoal that formed a swimming
Speaker 1: hole gradually sloped upward as you motored toward it downriver,
Speaker 1: and it was shaded in the afternoon along our side,
Speaker 1: with a nice sandy bank and a sandbar to sit
Speaker 1: and play on. It was impossible for me to stay
Speaker 1: out of it, and many times when we made our
Speaker 1: way through there fishing, I just up and bail out
Speaker 1: of the boat. Dad would pull up on the bank
Speaker 1: in the shade and join me, or just let me
Speaker 1: swim awhile before we carried on fishing again. I couldn't wait.
Speaker 1: What better way the top of the morning to catching fish,
Speaker 1: cleaning and eating a belly full of them than by
Speaker 1: cooling off in the swimming hole. There were muscles to
Speaker 1: be dug and open looking for pearls. Tracks on the
Speaker 1: sandbar to be identified and talked about, and flat rocks
Speaker 1: to skip. I didn't have time for a nap, but
Speaker 1: no argument I made was going to work. So after
Speaker 1: the kitchen was cleaned, we headed off to the sleeping room.
Speaker 1: We left the kitchen and walked through the original bedroom
Speaker 1: and passed the bathroom and into the sleeping room, both
Speaker 1: of which had been added in nineteen seventy four from
Speaker 1: lumber scraps from a family member's old home place that
Speaker 1: had been built in the eighteen hundreds. Lots of history
Speaker 1: in that structure. I was about to add some more.
Speaker 1: When you walked into the sleeping room, there was a
Speaker 1: big bed on the right, perpendicular to you as you entered,
Speaker 1: in bunks against the far walls. In front of those bunks,
Speaker 1: aimed at the bed was a big, industrial sized two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty volt metal fan, like the kind you'd
Speaker 1: see in a chicken house. I wonder where it came from, anyway.
Speaker 1: It was housed in and a square wooden frame that
Speaker 1: sat on the floor like a humongous box fan, and
Speaker 1: when you turned it on, it could literally blow the
Speaker 1: hat off your head or cut it off along with
Speaker 1: your head if you happen to poke either in through
Speaker 1: the backside where there wasn't any chicken wire to keep
Speaker 1: you out of it. There wasn't any air conditioning back there,
Speaker 1: so the windows were up, letting what air was turning
Speaker 1: outside in through the screens. And there may have been
Speaker 1: a few mosquitoes buzzing around in there, but a bald
Speaker 1: eagle couldn't have made any headway against the wind generated
Speaker 1: by that fan. We stripped down to our boxers, and
Speaker 1: he put me on the fan side so I could
Speaker 1: feel the air. Buddy Reeves and Buddy Reeves two point
Speaker 1: zero laying down on top of the sheets on that
Speaker 1: big old bed, but only one of us was looking
Speaker 1: forward to that nap. Dad, let's go swimming. We'll go directly,
Speaker 1: lay down and go to sleep. I ain't sleepy, Hush, now,
Speaker 1: close your eyes. I laid down and closed him, But
Speaker 1: all I could see was that swimming hole. I stared
Speaker 1: at the ceiling. I stared out the window. I checked
Speaker 1: the clock on the table. I stared at the ceiling
Speaker 1: some more. I watched the leaves in the trees out
Speaker 1: the window, barely moving against the wind. It felt like
Speaker 1: three hours had passed. When I checked the clock again,
Speaker 1: and I was disappointed, realizing it ain't been fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Time travel slow for a boy wanting to go outside.
Speaker 1: I stared back at the ceiling, and then I heard
Speaker 1: my dad snore a little bit. I looked at him,
Speaker 1: and I saw how easy and rhythmic he was breathing. Man,
Speaker 1: that's the good sleep, the sleep that you wake up
Speaker 1: from feeling fresh and happy, the kind that I look
Speaker 1: forward to now, But at that time it was standing
Speaker 1: in the way of me going swimming. Now, what happened
Speaker 1: next can only be described as an out of body experience.
Speaker 1: I can see it now, played out of my head,
Speaker 1: like those folks that die in the operating room and
Speaker 1: see themselves above everything that's going on, only to realize
Speaker 1: that it's not their time to go, and suddenly they're
Speaker 1: backing their body, conscious and looking around with an incredible
Speaker 1: story to tell. I watched my dad sleeping so peacefully,
Speaker 1: his farmer tan arms were brown as biscuits compared to
Speaker 1: his belly that was as white as the sheets we
Speaker 1: were laid on, and I wondered, I wondered how hard
Speaker 1: I'd had to punch him in the belly to get
Speaker 1: my fist in there. Up to my elbow. Now, for
Speaker 1: the life of me, I have no idea where that
Speaker 1: thought came from or the gumption I had to find out.
Speaker 1: I slowly raised up, making sure I didn't wake him up.
Speaker 1: The racket from the fan had drowned out any squeaks
Speaker 1: from the bed spring, and he was comatose. I clearly
Speaker 1: remember bawling up my fist and looking at it, and
Speaker 1: then looking at his belly, and decided on whether or
Speaker 1: not I should do it. His arms and legs shot
Speaker 1: straight up like a dying roach, and his eyes bugged
Speaker 1: out of his head like Yosemite SAMs did whenever bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny dropped an anvil on his foot. I knocked all
Speaker 1: the wind out of him, and it took him several
Speaker 1: gups of air for him to start breathing again. I
Speaker 1: still don't know why I did it, but I knew
Speaker 1: the safest place I could be at that point of
Speaker 1: my life was anywhere he wasn't. And when my feet
Speaker 1: hit the floor, I was running as fast as I
Speaker 1: possibly could, and regretting the decision I'd considered a good
Speaker 1: idea just a while ago. I didn't even make it
Speaker 1: out of the room before he hemmed me up. There
Speaker 1: was no escape, and I realized right then and there
Speaker 1: that my daddy was going to kill me, and I
Speaker 1: deserved it. He said, boy, I told you to lay
Speaker 1: down and go to sleep. I beat him to the
Speaker 1: bed and I jumped over next to the wall so
Speaker 1: he'd be on the fan side where it was coolest.
Speaker 1: It was the least I could do. He didn't whoop me.
Speaker 1: He laid down, and after a minute I squeaked out,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Dad. He reached over and patted me on
Speaker 1: the arm and said, close your eyes, and I did.
Speaker 1: In about an hour, he woke me up and he
Speaker 1: took me swimming, just like he said he would. Swimming
Speaker 1: holes sometimes they'll make you lose your mind. So if
Speaker 1: you're wondering about up to my wrist, that's how far
Speaker 1: it got in his belly. It all happened pretty fast,
Speaker 1: but that's just how it happened. Now. What makes a
Speaker 1: good swimming hole, really all you need is a body
Speaker 1: of water big enough to crawl into. But just like
Speaker 1: anything else, some are just better than others. There was
Speaker 1: a small creek that ran through and along the northern
Speaker 1: edge of our farm. It was a magical place that
Speaker 1: was spring fed and where we'd cleaned out our swimming hole,
Speaker 1: and that water was cold as a steel wedge. In
Speaker 1: the heat of the summer. There were big vines hanging
Speaker 1: from the trees, and we cut them with a hatchet
Speaker 1: or a pocket knife and swung from one side to
Speaker 1: the other until we pulled them slap out of the tree,
Speaker 1: which never seemed to happen anywhere but when you were midstream,
Speaker 1: especially if you weren't planning on swimming that day and
Speaker 1: just trying to cross the creek. Todd and Bob rode
Speaker 1: the same school bus that I did, and Bob lived
Speaker 1: just over a quarter of a mile from it, but
Speaker 1: Tod was almost four miles away by the road, but
Speaker 1: we knew it short cut through the woods along some
Speaker 1: old lanes and forgotten roads and trails that made it
Speaker 1: a little over a mile and a mile that wasn't
Speaker 1: no step for a stepper. We worked several days on
Speaker 1: a swimming hole below what we called goat House Hill.
Speaker 1: And before I was born, my and Paul raised goats
Speaker 1: along with chickens and cows, and he had built a
Speaker 1: house for them to stay in. My mama talked about
Speaker 1: the goats climbing all over that structure, and it was
Speaker 1: all gone by the time I started making tracks over there,
Speaker 1: but the name remained. Below the hill where the goats
Speaker 1: used to be was a creek, and where we'd made
Speaker 1: our swimming hole, getting the big rocks out and keeping
Speaker 1: it clean from sticks and broken vines. We were all
Speaker 1: three knocking around the barn one summer day, and my
Speaker 1: grandpa told me that he'd give us a dollar if
Speaker 1: we could find a cow that was missing. Thirty three
Speaker 1: and the third cents each was incentive enough, so off
Speaker 1: we went. We played and looked forward and called that cow,
Speaker 1: but couldn't find her, and eventually we wound up down
Speaker 1: by the swimming hole below goat House hill. Well, we
Speaker 1: might as well go in swimming since we're here, so
Speaker 1: we peeled off our clothes and before Khaki lickors behind
Speaker 1: in the creek, we went chunking mud and laughing and playing,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how long we'd been swimming when
Speaker 1: Todd asked, what's that smell? Now? I hadn't smelled it
Speaker 1: until he said something, but when he did, it was
Speaker 1: unmistakable to anyone that had ever smelled a dead cow.
Speaker 1: We started slipping up the creek. Against the current, all
Speaker 1: naked is the day we were born. In thirty yards
Speaker 1: around a short bend in the creek, we found our
Speaker 1: cow deader than disco, laying in the creek we were
Speaker 1: standing in and only moments before, had been swimming in
Speaker 1: up to our ears. We took off out of there
Speaker 1: like we'd see a monster, grabbed our clothes, climbed out
Speaker 1: on the bank, got dressed, and took off for higher ground.
Speaker 1: We found my grandpa and told him where the cow was.
Speaker 1: He didn't even ask why all our hair was wet.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he probably knew, but he gave us each
Speaker 1: a dollar, which was a pleasant surprise and wiped all
Speaker 1: that trauma away that we'd just been through. After all
Speaker 1: that work we did cleaning and making that swimming hole,
Speaker 1: we never went back to that spot. Swimming creeks and
Speaker 1: swimming holes were a diamond dozen and it wasn't so
Speaker 1: much the activity or the place that was imported, I
Speaker 1: know now. It was the instance of our youth and
Speaker 1: the joy we shared in a wholesome environment, just to
Speaker 1: enjoying each other's company and having fun, whether we were
Speaker 1: fishing in the water or swimming in Warren, Arkansas has
Speaker 1: a ymcaight and a big swimming pool. At one time,
Speaker 1: and it may still be it was the smallest community
Speaker 1: in the nation that had such a facility. I'd get
Speaker 1: a ride to town or stay at my grandma and
Speaker 1: my grandpa's house in town and go in swimming with
Speaker 1: my friends at the wye. But it just wasn't the
Speaker 1: same as swimming in the country. In the country, we
Speaker 1: allowed running on the bank, horseplay and peeling in the pool,
Speaker 1: all activities that were frowned upon by the lifeguards at
Speaker 1: the White ninety five percent of the time. And we
Speaker 1: were swimming in the country. We were swimming in water
Speaker 1: with current, and all you had to do was announce
Speaker 1: your intentions and move away downstream from the crowd and
Speaker 1: let it rip. I never got in a pool then,
Speaker 1: or see one now that I don't look at it
Speaker 1: as one big commode. Come on, Chlorine, do your thing now.
Speaker 1: There are drawbacks to swimming in homemade swimming holes. A
Speaker 1: time that comes to mind was with those same two
Speaker 1: rascals that helped me find that dead cow, and we
Speaker 1: met up with the intentions to go fishing in a
Speaker 1: pond over next to Tod's grandpa's farm. It didn't belong
Speaker 1: to any of us. We just helped the folks fishing
Speaker 1: that did on it when they weren't around to tell
Speaker 1: us no. Anyway, we made our way in the heat
Speaker 1: of the day over to the small pond and we
Speaker 1: started fishing. We noticed the turtle bobbing up and down
Speaker 1: out in the middle, but we didn't think much about it,
Speaker 1: except he stayed in the same place like he was
Speaker 1: hung on something with a fish not biden. I decided
Speaker 1: to swim out, catch that turtle and bring him up
Speaker 1: on the bank to see what his problem was. So,
Speaker 1: having been issued my birthday suit and swimming suit on
Speaker 1: the same day in March in nineteen sixty six, I
Speaker 1: got down to both of them and in the water,
Speaker 1: I went like a country boy. Jacques Cousto, Todd and
Speaker 1: Bob both had enough sense to wait on the bank
Speaker 1: while I performed my mission to mercy on that bobing turtle,
Speaker 1: and man, am I glad they did. I swam out
Speaker 1: toward that turtle and was treading water within the arm's
Speaker 1: reach of him when he bobbed back to the service
Speaker 1: and I reached and grabbed him by the back of
Speaker 1: the shell. He immediately tried to swim away from me,
Speaker 1: but I was an expert turtle catcher and turned and
Speaker 1: headed for the bank and Todd and Bob. I didn't
Speaker 1: make it a foot when that turtle pulled me back
Speaker 1: with a force that confused me. It felt like he
Speaker 1: was tied to something. So I turned back towards him,
Speaker 1: and I pulled him up out of the water, and
Speaker 1: I saw he had a trot line hook in his mouth,
Speaker 1: and I was swimming all around it. How I didn't
Speaker 1: get hung up it myself and drowned was a true miracle.
Speaker 1: I turned the turtle loose, and I yelled, it's a
Speaker 1: trot line, and swam to the bank as fast as
Speaker 1: I could. We found both ends of it, cut it
Speaker 1: and pulled it and the turtle up on the bank.
Speaker 1: We cut that turtle loose and pulled the trot line
Speaker 1: that had the remnants of catfish that had been caught
Speaker 1: and left for the turtles. Deed, someone else had been
Speaker 1: helping them. Folks fish that pond too, but they wasn't
Speaker 1: doing it right. You got to be responsible and run
Speaker 1: your lines regularly. Some bozo had wasted some good catfish
Speaker 1: by not checking his line. Fortunately, three adolescent trespassers came
Speaker 1: along and saved the day. We wrapped it up and
Speaker 1: jobbed the hooks down in a stick and left it
Speaker 1: hanging on a limb by where one end that had
Speaker 1: been tied to the bank. It was. It wasn't going
Speaker 1: to hook anyone or anything else, and it wasn't ours,
Speaker 1: so we couldn't keep it whoever left it out there
Speaker 1: or to be ashamed for doing so. Anyway, if you
Speaker 1: knew the country swimming holes, be mindful that there are
Speaker 1: some advantages to swimming in those big commodes in town
Speaker 1: where the lifeguards are probably not going to encounter any
Speaker 1: turtles or trot lines. But pee good luck with that one.
Speaker 1: I promise to tell you why these places are important,
Speaker 1: but I guess I can only tell you why I
Speaker 1: think they're important, And maybe I'm kind of contradicting my
Speaker 1: first thought about how a particular place wasn't as key
Speaker 1: a component as the activity that I shared with family
Speaker 1: or friends. Morobey, Arkansas, on the Washingta River was at
Speaker 1: the south end of Bradley County when I was sixteen
Speaker 1: and old enough to legally drive. I'd actually been driving
Speaker 1: for seven years before that, but that's another story. My
Speaker 1: friends and I would pile into each other's cars and trucks,
Speaker 1: and in forty five minutes we would have crossed the
Speaker 1: river on a ferry and driven down to a big
Speaker 1: sandy beach at Romeo Shoals to swim and just be
Speaker 1: kids out on her own. My lifelong friend Wade man
Speaker 1: and hollered at me the other day and reminded me
Speaker 1: of a time that we spent down there at the
Speaker 1: river between two a day football practices for hydration. We
Speaker 1: had made some poor choices that day, and football practice
Speaker 1: that afternoon in August in Arkansas was not pleasant of
Speaker 1: all the days for the Booster Club to bring watermelons
Speaker 1: to have after practice. It wasn't a lot of boys
Speaker 1: eating watermelon, at least not the folks that had been
Speaker 1: on the river that day. But Wade mentioned that day
Speaker 1: to me, and immediately my mind was flooded with a
Speaker 1: ton of memories associated with people in that particular place,
Speaker 1: some of the best friends I've ever had, and I
Speaker 1: can see us all together in that place and others
Speaker 1: during the summers of our youth. I enjoy seeing snapshots
Speaker 1: of people, some I don't even know, recreating pictures with
Speaker 1: folks in the same poses, sometimes in the same places
Speaker 1: from days gone by, and the faces may change and
Speaker 1: they may age over time, but the joy man usually remains.
Speaker 1: The places I talked about today are mostly all still there,
Speaker 1: but some of the people are gone now and live
Speaker 1: only when I think of those places and the time
Speaker 1: shared with them. So yeah, places are important. The names
Speaker 1: of those spots are the folders where we store all
Speaker 1: the pictures and the whole movies that we play in
Speaker 1: our heads and our hearts. Whenever they're mentioned, make sure
Speaker 1: you got plenty of room on your hard drive for
Speaker 1: the important files. No Wi Fi is required, and you
Speaker 1: can watch them anytime you want. Sometimes after a call
Speaker 1: from an old friend. That's your challenge this week, think
Speaker 1: about a place and the folks you shared something special with,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't have to be from years ago. I
Speaker 1: talked about things this week that happened a long time ago,
Speaker 1: but I'm still thinking about a wonderful supper that Alexis
Speaker 1: and I shared with new friends just last week. You know,
Speaker 1: the years may sweeten the wine, but the grape it
Speaker 1: was pretty good when it came off the vine. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. If you can share it with someone
Speaker 1: you think might enjoy it too. Ratings and reviews are
Speaker 1: always helpful in getting our show out to other folks
Speaker 1: that would like it. I thank y'all so much for
Speaker 1: listening this week. This is Brent Reeves sign it off.
Speaker 1: Y'all be careful