Old-time swimming hole

Old Mrs. Crabtree lived in the dilapidated, two-story house at the end of Flamingo Street. It was the only one in the cul-de-sac; the rest of the lots were in a flood plain and couldn’t be built on.

Just as well. Who’d want to live next to the hardest fifth grade teacher at Mt. Olive Elementary School anyway?

But her backyard did hold one redeeming quality. Behind her house — where the land bellies out flat and the dirt turns black as soot pots — was the elbow in Cripple Creek. There, on her property, was the best swimming hole in three counties. All we had to do was paint her house to swim in it. I’ll explain.

Mrs. Crabtree’s house had a red front door, dingy black shutters, and dirty windows (most with broken-out screens, thanks to a couple of stray throws from the great dirt clod battle of ’71).

After being bombarded by our snowballs during the winter and dirt clods in the spring, come the beginning of summer, the old two-story house wrapped in white one-by-six clapboards was thirsty for a fresh coat of paint.

The house stood alone at the end of Flamingo Street, baked by the sun and assaulted by waves of heat as they rolled down the steep blacktop and crashed against the red front door.

Every year, the high temperatures would cause the nails to back out as the old shutters and clapboards warped, cracked, and dried.

Luckily for us, by May the house would start to peel, and by summer it looked like it hadn’t been painted in the last 100 years.

That’s why, as soon as school let out for the summer, Old Mrs. Crabtree would give Dad a call. Us boys painted her house every year, and all summer long we swam in Cripple Creek during our painting breaks.

Cripple Creek ran behind Neighbor Thomas’s house, our house, and all the houses on the right side of Flamingo Street. It flowed all the way down to the cul-de-sac where it bent sharply to the left around Mrs. Crabtree’s backyard just before it emptied into the swampland.

Over the years, the heavy rains carved out the swimming hole in the bend of the creek. There, the water ran deep and blue, and was cold as ice. Perfect for a quick dip to cool off after an hour or so of scraping, banging nails back in, and painting.

Mrs. Crabtree would let us swim anytime we wanted in the icy, murky waters of our private swimming hole — as long as we painted her house.

It was a job that somehow always took us all summer to complete. She paid my three brothers, Neighbor Thomas, Goofy Steve, Bubba Hanks, and me two dollars a day to paint. Which wasn’t bad once you added in the sandwiches with extra peanut butter that she fixed us for lunch, the Co-Cola’s, and the Moon Pies for snacks.

We all had our specific jobs: Bubba Hanks, being the heaviest, anchored the ladder while we took our turns climbing, scraping, banging and priming the two-story house. Big Brother James mixed the paint. Thomas washed the windows and painted the shutters a shiny black.

And Goofy Steve – well, old Goof did what he did best: just acted goofy. Even when Goof got stuck in the tan mud of our swimming hole, he was goofy. And poor Goof was always getting stuck in that mud.

The banks of Cripple Creek around our swimming hole were covered in a thick tan mud that we tried to avoid at all costs for fear of getting stuck — especially Bubba Hanks.

To say that Bubba displaced a lot of water when he jumped into Cripple Creek was an understatement. Any fish unfortunate to be in our swimming hole either drowned, got washed downstream, or got hopelessly stuck in the tan mud whenever Bubba did one of his trademark cannonballs.

No telling what would’ve happened to Bubba if he’d stepped off into that mud. He’d probably still be stuck today. Goof, on the other hand, got stuck and somehow got unstuck all the time. Usually with a whole lot less clothing than he started out with.

One summer Goof lost three pairs of shoes, one of his granddaddy’s walking sticks, a pair of Bermuda shorts, a watch, and two Co-Cola’s. The tan quicksand-like mud around our swimming hole just sucked them all off.

That same summer I lost my new pair of high-top white Keds Converse to the mud, and Down the Street Bully Brad got stuck for hours in the muck.

Bully Brad knew we all painted Mrs. Crabtree’s house each summer and swam in Cripple Creek during the afternoon breaks. He hid in the bushes around our swimming hole and jumped me as I sat down on the bank to take off my high tops. Lucky for me, Bubba came to my rescue.

They wrestled on top of the bank, kicking up sand and dirt into the air — and my high tops into the tan mud. They fought for what seemed like forever.

Suddenly, Bubba got to his feet, waited for Brad to get to his, did one of his trademark football blocks that knocked Bully Brad face first into the mud.

We all ran. I was hoping the mud would suck Brad’s ugly face off, but the next week I spotted him and his mom buying new shoes at the Woolworth’s. Bully Brad was as ugly as ever. Guess that tan mud did have its limitations on what it would suck off.

Every summer we had lots of fun down at our swimming hole. Every summer Goof lost articles of clothing – sucked off by the tan mud. And every summer we painted Old Mrs. Crabtree’s white clap-board house. Dad said there wasn’t paint in existence that could withstand the heat rolling down off Flamingo Street during the long, hot, summer.

Guess the paint we used would’ve lasted a bit longer if James hadn’t watered it down so much. He said it would make the paint go further. Don’t know about that.

But it did make us have to repaint Old Mrs. Crabtree’s house every year. And that gave us access to the coldest swimming hole in three counties — and memories that will last forever.