Recently, Sarah and I took the boys (her husband, Dustin, included) to the Salamonie. I missed them dearly and needed some sister time. Trudy and Rozlynn were supposed to go with us, but Trudy unfortunately got the plague. (A stomach bug. Same thing.)
We packed ingredients for tin foil dinners — potatoes, carrots, onions, seasonings, and hamburger — and Sarah brought Nutty Bars. Nutty Bars are a staple Salamonie Reservoir swimming day food for Sarah. A staple swimming day for me includes forgetting my towel. It’s tradition.
Dustin cooked dinner for us — he never has liked swimming in cold riverwater. Sarah and I headed to the water with George and Whit. Whit takes after his father and also isn’t fond of swimming in water he can’t see through. Instead, he played with his new sand toys, yelling the occasional, “Mom, come here!” to which I would yell back, “You come here!” That was met with a look that asked if I had lost the sense the good Lord gave me. Joke’s on that kid, the Lord didn’t give me any sense. A copious amount of sarcasm and the ability to make questionable choices that lead to good stories, yes.
Sarah and I take the coward’s way into the water. You know, you ease in inch by inch. I’m not sure when I stopped diving headfirst into cold, dark, murky water. As she and I were wading out, we both walked across a long strip of rocks and pebbles and said to each other we needed to find them again on our way back in.
It was something we used to do with Mom: sit in the water and search for fossils or pretty rocks. Eventually George joined us with requests to not splash either of us — I have a tendency to get swimmer’s ear every single time I go swimming. Whit eventually joined us after plenty of coaxing.
While we were sitting, sifting through sand and some clay, I couldn’t help but think of Mom. Summers as a kid were spent almost entirely at the Salamonie. Mom would call our neighbor Ellen down the street, who also had two daughters. The conversation would go something like this:
“I have a pound of bologna.”
“I have a loaf of bread.”
“I can make a gallon of Kool-Aid.”
“I can grab some Debbie cakes.”
And off we would go. We would leave the Salamonie after about eight hours — sunburnt, smelling like river water, and covered in sand.
“I wish I could go back, for like, a day,” Sarah said. I laughed and told her I was just thinking the same thing.
Sarah and I made the boys get out of the water to eat dinner — another reminder of my childhood. I taught Whit how to eat a Nutty Bar without getting melted chocolate all over your fingers. I can’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember smiling and laughing at the boys.
Whit ended up convincing me to get back into the water with him and George. Let’s be honest here, it wasn’t hard. I ended up spinning both boys in circles — which reminded me that I am not as strong as I used to be. The reason I went back into the water, was not just to make my nephews happy, but with hope that maybe this would be a memory they would keep: spending time at the Salamonie with their parents and their aunt. Not getting sunburnt, eating tin foil dinners, and searching for fossils and cool rocks.
It would be nice, wouldn’t it? Just one day where we were all together as kids again, sunburnt and smelling like river water, and covered in sand.
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