1984: Swimming Holes
A paean to favorite swimming holes of the Felicianas
This story was selected by the Country Roads magazine editorial team as the representative piece for 1984 in the archival project "40 Stories From 40 Years"—celebrating the magazine's 40th anniversary on stands. Click here to read more stories from the project.
In the not so long ago, in that quiet time between world wars, when the long, lazy, sultry days of summer settled fine dust deep on West Feliciana country roads, the thing for a child to do was to seek out one of the clearbedded shallow creeks that veined the lush blufflands.
These delightful oases of ease meandered for miles, spring-fed, ever-running, always cool, deep within the green gloom of wooded ridges. Their clear water babbled over-multi-colored gravel, splotched at random by rust-colored chunks of ferruginous rock that looked so foreign they could well have been thrown down from interstellar space.
Over the small creeks, the branches of trees interlaced like ribbed vaults, and down the mossy banks where the springs trickled, wild violets and fern grew hidden from the searing sun. Here and there were deeper pools of still water, green with a depth that might just reach the chin of a sitting child. The pools were never constant; summer cloudbursts washed them away, and only patient wading revealed their new location. The roll of distant thunder could send bathers scampering up the banks, for showers falling far off upstream could send a low wall of water tumbling down to catch the unwary.
Little Bayou Sara had slippery clay banks that could be greased by splashing to sliding perfection and were just gritty enough to wear out bathing suit bottoms without grazing the bottoms of the wearers.
Where Little Bayou Sara met Big Bayou Sara there were wooden bridges for taking cover during the sudden showers, to the relief of Sunday School teachers on Picnic Day. The occasional vehicle rattled over, sending tarred gravel between the cracks in the planking onto the huddled sunburnt bodies below. The smell of creosote mingled with the clean smell of the rain and the sweet breath of ripe watermelon in a pleasantly medicinal way.
At the ford on lower Big Bayou Sara wagon wheels muddied the water and made ruts in the sand and horses’ hooves chipped away at the clay banks. Town children only went there to cool off because it was within a bicycle ride from the Foot of the Hill.
Layson’s Bluff was sinister with forebodings of quick sand and sink holes and tales of drownings. It was not a place for children, and even strong swimmers went there at their peril.
Pretty Creek was over Clinton way, deep and cold and filled with Older Cousins who took swimming seriously. The Great Aunts, affected long ago by Sir Walter Scott, called it Bonnie Burn and stood on the bank in their long skirts. The Judicial Uncle was masterful with the Australian Crawl; a child was not.
When parents were of a mind and a car was available. Chaney Creek was the best creek of all. In August ripe muscadines fell into the water and floated there for the taking. Swinging vines made cooling breezes play on damp bodies and wet bathing suits. On the sand bank, sets of parents sat chatting quietly and waiting with tunafish sandwiches spread with sweet country butter on soft light bread and had the crusts cut off.
Gale’s Creek was the coolest of all the creeks; it sprang from a big spring and was continually fed by the little springs that seeped their coolness into the stream. Here a splashing child was always careful to stay downstream of a fly-fishing father whose infinite patience extended to all small fry in the water before him. Occasionally a child might bring a friend along, but two pairs of skipping skinny legs disturbed the fish past endurance.
By way of recompense, the father might take a child to see the high cliffs below Ellerslie. He called them The Pallisades and liked to stand still and watch them change colors with the light, but the sand was hot on a child’s bare feet.
The father knew about the Silver Bath where the Audubons had played long, long ago, and a child could be enchanted by a real waterfall, but never even dream of a cooling dip. The sight and sound of the water was fraught with history and was for reverencing, not splashing, and a child sat quietly under the beech and magnolias, listening to the past.