Yesterday I wrote about walking through the woods and going to the Devil’s Backbone, to the Limestone, and such but today I want to tell you about the activities we did when it rained and what we did on our days off from work in the summer. God says in His Bible that He gives the weather in its seasons ( Jeremiah 5:24 ) and when it rained without the lightning and thunder, the ditches and creeks were our playground.
When we were smaller and unable to walk very far without an older sibling, the rains would fill the ditches near the house and we’d go play. Making mud balls and having mud ball fights was a must! We never threw them at cars or put them on the road for people to run over like someone else I know, but some may have ended up there from our throwing. Those were splattered compared to the roadblocks I heard about.
Mom wouldn’t let us in the house when we came back and we had to either stand in the rain doing an Indian dance until we were clean enough or wash off in a galvanized tub in the back yard where she collected water for watering the garden. Back then we did not have a garden hose or water faucet outside to wash off. There was a cistern but it was attached to the house water and it was only years later when dad put a well in place.
There was a creek we called “Banet’s Creek” that we would walk about two miles to get to that we played in. It was not like the small creeks around our home that was maybe a few feet wide. This one ranged from 10 feet to maybe 20 or so in areas and was usually shallow. We would enter in by way of a road access where tractors would enter to get to their fields on the other side.
Sometimes we would find areas where we were chest deep but the distance we traveled usually wasn’t too deep.; That is, until it rained and the creek swelled up. We had to wait maybe a day when it rained hard so the water could go down some before we went. If we had a day where we were playing in the creek and the rains were coming, we knew we had to get out fast. When a hard rain came, there was usually a wall of water that came with it and that could drown us.
I remember one day there was 3 of us walking and we got to where one was neck deep, the other waist deep, and I chest deep. We had company that day and it was long and slithering. The older sibling in the middle went down as one of us pulled her one way and the other the opposite way. We were in an area where it was kind of deep and there was still a good current flowing so we were holding hands to stay together. I lost my shoe as we split up screaming! Looking back, it was hilarious but not at the time.
We loved to walk. Sometimes we would walk a 4 mile circle from our home to roads that would make a circle back to our home. I did a lot of thinking and praying along the way. It gave me a peace in my heart and eased the tension from my troubles. Plus, it was on the road past my future husband’s home and I always hoped to get a chance to see or talk to him. Looking back at that, seems kind of cheesy doesn’t it? Oh the things teens will do when they think they are in love!
