Pond Panic

With each year that I age and the more people I encounter, I find fewer that consider their childhood a happy time. This baffles me. I wonder if we think we are more interesting if we are filled with misery, if the world has become such an ugly place, or if I am just extremely blessed. Though my childhood was not without its disappointments, it is a time I reflect upon with joy in my heart and a smile on my face.

Many of these memories revolve around my time growing up on our farm with my older brother and sister. Being the youngest by five years, I admittedly was spoiled, and I loved every minute of it. I never begrudged my siblings their extra privileges of being older, such as staying up later, for I was smart enough to realize they also had to do many things that were never asked of me. I remember one cold November evening, we had a cow giving birth who had slipped into the pond. My brother and sister were out for hours with my father helping him trying to save the calf while I stayed in having hot cocoa with my mother. Though I felt for them all, cow included, I was just as relieved that I was too small to assist.

I think it is important to pass our memories onto our children, to give them a personal peek into how life was just a short time ago. My son and I have developed a tradition where after reading his nightly story, we curl up together and I tell him
of something that happened when I was about his age. Many times the stories are repeated as he has his favorites. Currently, he is obsessed by what I call, “Pond Panic.”

It was a hot August day, as they all are in Oklahoma. I was ten, so my brother and sister would have been fifteen and sixteen respectively. We had decided to go swimming and fishing in our pond. I loved floating around the water in an old inner tube. My brother and sister would fish, of course competing to see who caught the most, the biggest, the first, etc. They would always torment me, telling me they saw a snake or a nest of wasps. I became immune to their antics. I loved the water, and as long as I stayed on my side of the pond not disturbing their fish we got along just fine.

The sun was beating down on me, and I was pretending I was a princess floating in her castle pool surrounded by all my servants when I first heard the screaming. Startled, I tipped over off the tire taking in quite a bit of scummy pond water. When I surfaced, I saw my brother running along the shore. He was dragging the line of all the fish he caught, yelling as if Satan himself were after him. Swimming toward him, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was another cruel trick. It was only after I stopped to tread water and saw the panic in my sister’s eyes as he handed her the fish did I realize this was not a trick. Now they were both running. Around the pond they went dragging these fish, yelling with fear.

Finally, I saw it. The biggest snake I had ever seen was chasing them! What I couldn’t understand was why they didn’t just let go of the fish; that is what he wanted. Parallel with them now, not far from shore, I yelled my words of wisdom, “Drop the fish!”

My sister obviously thinking this was brilliant didn’t just drop the fish, but she hurled them, right into the pond directly in my direction. To this day, she swears it wasn’t intentional. I swam that pond at the speed of an Olympic swimmer as that snake slithered its evil body in, searching to devour the fish. As I tried to scurry up the opposite bank, I slipped. I was convinced the snake had my leg and started begging my sister to rescue me. I felt two hands reach out for me. One was my sister’s and one my brother’s. Both had come racing to my rescue. As we lie on the bank crying and laughing, we made a pack not to tell mom and dad of our adventure for fear the pond would become off limits.

It may not be the greatest story ever told, but it’s mine. It reminds me of a time when all we needed to have fun was a little piece of nature. It was a time when we could laugh at ourselves and share a secret that was innocent. It makes me thankful my childhood memories bring a smile to both me and my son. For I am blessed that I experienced a childhood that consisted of far more memoires I treasure than those I would like to forget.
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