Growing up in Texas was always a challenge in the summer months.  Heat, humidity, mosquitos, and chiggers–what more could you ever want?  Unlike those two years in University Park, there was no handy pool nearby for a young mermaid to walk to.  As I mentioned a while back, I did have our neighbor’s pool to visit from time to time, but my parents didn’t want to abuse that privilege.   Often my Mother would drop me and a friend or two off at a nearby pool for the day. One of our favorites was a park with a spring-filled pool called Sandy Lake.  With a brown bag of sandwiches and snacks, and occasionally enough money to buy a hot dog or hamburger, we were set for the day!

Sandy Lake had a sandy bottom with concrete walls around the sides, hence its name.  It was spring-filled, and even on steamy hot summer days, it remained deliciously cool.   It was around this time that I decided to try some competitive swimming.  My best friend, June, and I entered local swim meets and spent hours doing laps around the very large Sandy Lake Pool.  We also went to a summer Day Camp held at nearby Bachman Lake at the YMCA pool.  Neither of us, June and me, were overly interested in the crafts and singing kinds of stuff–how ridiculous–but we did love the pool time!  We worked on our strokes and raced up and down the lanes in the pool.  My Esther Williams persona again shined through at times like this.

Bachman Lake was a favorite haunt of ours, from swimming in the large pool, to hikes around the lake, to just hanging out beneath the large old trees, pecan and live oak as I remember.  One of our other favorite excursions was to slip out of June’s house (She lived really close to the lake.) in the middle of the night and head over to the pool at the YMCA camp.  To get there we had to cross a fairly busy highway, but that didn’t deter us.  Once under the shadowy security of the huge trees, we quickly scaled the fence and went skinny-dipping in the dark pool.  Don’t ask me why we didn’t take bathing suits; I guess it was more of an adventure just to go au natural!  Luckily for us there were not any security guards around the camp.  As I look back, I do wonder what both sets of our parents would have thought about these little adventures.

Often on weekends our family would head off to one of the many lakes in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area to go boating or fishing.  My Dad, as I alluded to before, had a knack for acquiring usual possessions in various kinds of trades.  One of those trades resulted in the acquisition of an old wooden boat with an outboard motor.  Daddy refurbished the wood and tinkered endlessly with the motor.  I didn’t know it at the time, but that old boat was a Lyman, from a long and  distinguished New England boat manufacturer.  The wood was soon restored to its gleaming original condition, but the motor remained a greater challenge.

You may recall that my Dad had built a small, above-ground pool in our backyard?  Pool may have been too grandiose a term.  It was more like a big horse trough!  On one memorable occasion, needing to see if his repairs on the outboard motor were successful, my Dad stuck the outboard motor into our “pool.”  For a few moments it purred nicely.   Things were looking good.  Then with a great spurt, it suddenly clonked out, spewing black oil and fuel everywhere!  Our beautiful pool with its pale azure paint was now splattered everywhere with black, sticky goo — to my Mother’s ire and my Dad’s chagrin.  After a vigorous scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint, the pool was restored to its former glory, but I don’t think my Dad ever again tested the motor in the pool!

Our little boat was not at all like the powerful speedboats zipping around the lakes; it was more the slow and plodding old mare.  Water skiing was clearly not an option given the size of our boat and motor, but we had some sort of old wooden surfboard that we happily towed behind the boat.  To this day I have a chip in a tooth from one of those wild rides.  Texas lakes are known for having lots of snakes, rattlesnakes around the brush in the shoreline and water moccasins  in the water, all of them just waiting to bite the careless swimmer or hiker!  I was pretty well petrified of the water moccasins, sneaky little devils lurking there in the water waiting for the unsuspecting.  I always felt safer out in the deep middle of the lakes away from the shoreline.  I assumed that the snakes wouldn’t venture out to the middle of the lake.  Every summer we heard tales of water skiers skiing into a nest of water moccasins.  I don’t know if these tales were true or just in the realm of urban legend, but I certainly never ventured into the water too close to the shore.

On more than one occasion, the little motor would decide not to run any longer.  This usually occurred out in the middle of the lake and was frequently due to a broken cotter pin.  Finally some kind soul would come along and give us a tow back to our campsite, or if we were really lucky, they would have a couple of spare  cotter pins to share.  That old boat is long gone, but it lives on in my memories!

©Copyright 2015, The Eclectic Grandma