'I REMEMBER' POST # 3

I REMEMBER: RATS IN OUR SWIMMING HOLE

I was born at home in a little hamlet called Warriormine, W. VA. I was the third born of eight. Mother breast fed every one of us and loved us unconditionally. She could find joy in the slightest of things. The smell of the wind, the blue sky, the thunder sky, a cardinal. She had to; she reared us under destitute conditions. She always reminded us that we could be much worse off. Our little 'town' was called War. It was a mile down the road. We always walked to town.

We as children, had to entertain ourselves with the outdoors. And in summer we had our 'swimming hole'. All the neighborhood kids went to this body of murky water. Everybody's sewage was flushed directly into the creek behind our house. Mother forbid us to play in that creek. We kept the swimming hole a secret from her.

The swimming hole was up at the end of the road above our house. We walked until the pavement ran out and it turned to gravel. We rarely had shoes in the summer and I remember that the first several trips to the swimming hole hurt my feet. The walk was about 1.5 miles and took us 25 minutes or so.
This 'swimming hole' was simply an abandoned hole created by drain off from coal mining operations. But we didn't care, it was water to us. And in Warriormine, a place in McDowell County which was literally squeezed between two mountains, with horrible roads, we were forgotten. No summer facilities for us. Not even a carnival ever came to town.

I'm sure our immune systems got a workout playing in this water. The first day of summer that it was warm enough to go to the 'swimming hole' we all took off on our joyful walk, singing and talking. My favorite song was 'The Wayward Wind'. I learned to play it on the 'mouth harp' as it was called then. We arrived excited and so ready to jump in when we spotted something grey-black and furry floating on the water. As we looked harder we realized that there was several of these floating things in our swimming hole. My oldest sister Janet was the first to realize what had usurped our 'water park', rats! Big rats! They were drowned of course and inert. Janet being the oldest seemed to feel an obligation to make our water fit to play in and so she waded in and began taking each rat (wharf rats) by the tail and slinging them out into the woods around the pool. She was so pleased with herself for 'cleaning' the pool and yelled, "Come on in. It's okay now."...........we gleefully jumped in and began our usual routine; splashing each other, seeing how far we could go before it began to get over our heads and jumping off the crude diving board; a plank some of the neighborhood boys had managed to drive into the bank far enough to be strong enough to dive from. I had a bad experience on that board once and cried all the way home in the hot sun, but that is another 'I Remember'.

We stayed for hours in that water. Hunger is what drove us home, but more often than not there was not much to eat at home. Mother was always cooking a pot of pinto beans, but they were not done until evening. Food was scarce, but none of us ever got sick or overweight. All eight of us have remained rather healthy into our adulthoods. I credit the rats. Salute!

Gratefully, Cloudy