The Old Swimmin Hole

 Friday, November 1, 2013

THE OLD SWIMMIN HOLE

Most small towns in my generation, had an "Old Swimmin Hole. The one in our town was unique in the fact it was made out of cement. The floor and the walls were made of cement. Some say it was an old building foundation and some say it was the old town water reservoir. It was a pretty good hike up North Fork to get there but we usually were not in a big hurry to get there.

The water was absolutely frigid when you first dived, or climbed or crawled in. After you had been in a while it felt good on a hot summer day.

The small stream nearby was diverted to fill the pool and when the pool was full the water just kept running over the top of the dam on the lower end. We always rationalized that this kept the water clean.

During my teen years the dam at the bottom was blown out with dynamite by one of the men who worked for the company. Of course shortly after it was blown out "gunny sacks" or burlap bags were brought up and filled with rocks and dirt and we again had our swimming hole.

There were a few girls that would go swimming at the swimming hole but not many and not often. One reason was that some of the guys did not use a store bought swimming suit, but just went in the suit they were born in.

There are a couple of things I always wondered about the Old Swimmin Hole. 1. Has anyone ever seen a picture of it? 2. Was it really an old basement. 3. Does anyone know how the old 2" x 12" x 20' diving board ever got up there?

If anyone following this blog, has some comments about the "Old Swimmin  Hole" in your home town how about posting a comment on it.

The actually was a Movie made in 1940 called the Old Swimmin Hole. It must have typical of a lot of them found around small towns in the good old USA.

COULD THIS BE ME

For those of you who have not started (or almost finished) a personal record of your life, could I suggest you do it NOW! Perhaps you feel your life story would be inconsequential, or has been boring, or will be boring. However let me assure you, no matter what stage of life you are in, there is or will be a time when some friend or a family member, or perhaps even a complete stranger will thank you if you if write a history of yourself.

So what is the difference between  a journal a family history, a personal history, or an album of photographs? 

A lot of times a Mom starts one for each child---as a baby book. And then that poses the question- who finishes it?

I would suggest that you have a plan. If it is not a written one, you should at least have a plan in your head. And what events should you write about? The answer to that was always easy for me. My answer is ANYTHING YOU WANT TO! And when should you start writing--- NOW!

So what if two siblings from the same family, who write in a journal about the same thing might end up like this?--When Jim fell of his horse into a mud hole, Mom & Dad started yelling and running toward them to make sure they were O.K.--however little Bob and Alice their younger siblings were laughing and holding their stomachs to keep from falling over. So--one incident---two different complete reactions if they all wrote in their journals? Was one right and one wrong?

You might ask "how do you keep track of all the information?" The best advice I can give you is that if you start saving STUFF you will always find a place to put it! Maybe one file for a family or loose leaf style for photos, and even one for unlabeled pictures and files--AND EVEN THE DREADED UNLABELED -NO NAME - COMPUTER files.

A few weeks ago I was cleaning out a plain old cardboard box that had been sitting in my office (through several houses.) Toward the bottom of the box I found an old envelope. In it were two old yellow sheets of paper. One was a very official certification from the BSA made out to my Dad, indicating he had been made an official Assistant Scout Master on 25 Nov 1927. A second one was a Certificate indicating Willie Baldwin had not missed a day of school in the Beaver School District that year, and was dated 17 March 1918.  

I am 87 years old and still trying to keep up on my life story, and keep all of my treasures filed and sorted away in some fashion.

So the Million Dollar Question is :What do you write about?

And the Ten Dollar answer is: Any :thing You want too 

W.R Baldwin

14 July 2019