Growing Old With The Cabin

            Julie and Sharon missed out on all the early years at the cabin.  By the time they were old enough to explore the woods we had already found all the exciting places, and we didn’t go exploring anymore.

            Instead of growing up sleeping together in the same bed and having feet fights, or playing scrabble with grandma and going rock hunting with her, they grew up learning how to squirt sour grapes and other teenage activities, because they were surrounded by teenagers.

            The swimming hole below the cabin filled up with rocks during the big flood, so they never had the experience of having their own back yard swimming hole.  By the time they were teenagers we had to hike or drive up past the crossing to find a hole deep enough for swimming.  We found a great swimming hole with cool rocks that made a cave almost like in a polar bear exhibit at the zoo.  It also had a log bridge that crossed the creek, and huge boulders to dive from. That became our favorite place to spend a hot summer afternoon, but it was quite a ways up the creek, and we usually had to wait for someone to drive us there. 

A few years later we found another swimming hole even farther up the creek, with big rocks we could sunbath on high above a deep hole.  Both sides of the creek had good places for jumping, and clumps of tall green grass grew from crevices in the cliff and made it look like pictures we had seen of Hawaii.

            By the time Julie and Sharon were old enough to play outside by themselves the tree house had deteriorated into a wobbly, uninviting heap of old boards.  Keith liked climbing on top of the water tank, and he taught Julie how to get up there.  That became her lookout spot, and she spent many happy hours high above the rest of us.

            Dad still enjoyed taking us fishing, and he taught Julie and Sharon how to fish where the log across the creek used to be.  It had been swept away in the big flood, too, but the boulders were still there.  The boulder in the middle of the creek had been more exposed, and it made a good place to sit and sun tan.  It became ‘couch rock’ and the girls enjoyed playing on it. 

            Different plants began to grow along the creek after the flood, and we began to find crawdads under the rocks. 

Dad entertained Julie and Sharon by cutting green willow branches, tapping the bark to make it loose and then slipping it off.  With his pocketknife he would make notches in the smooth wood, then slip the green bark back over it.  This made a willow whistle, and the girls loved making music with them.

            At night we would go outside and sit on the hood of the old blue truck, looking at the stars.  Nowhere in the world were the stars as brilliant and close as they were up at the cabin.  It really seemed that if we could just stretch our arms a little bit farther, we would be able to pick them right out of the sky.  Even though the creek and forest had changed, going to the cabin was still our favorite thing to do, and the memories we made were worth more than all the money in the world.