Swimming

Growing up at a time in a place when and where there were no community swimming pools, no rivers, no lakes, no real ponds and poor transportation choices meant that learning to swim was virtually impossible.

My firends and I used to search for ponds that were more than knee deep and tried to splash around to get a decent dog paddle going. There was a gravel pit back the highway a few miles that we used to bicycle to, but it was only full of water in the spring when it was too cold to swim.

The Nation River flows through Spencerville, so there was a chance to get into deep water behind the dam, but only if you could already swim. The mighty St. Lawrence is only fifteen miles away, but it might as well have been fifteen hundred.

So now we own a cottage where we spend the summer months fifty feet from the water, a great place for me to cool off on those hot, muggy August days, while others wear out the water with energy and skill. I never found a pond this deep.