There is a little series of warm spring ponds near our
house called Warm Springs. It was used by the poor and immigrant
communities when I was growing up for a swimming pool, bar, and love
making venue all rolled into one. It was not uncommon to find a
melange of empty beer bottles, diapers , and condoms washed against
its banks. But poor is poor and free is free and you just swim to the
side of the public health crises and have fun anyway. There were five
ponds and the further in you went the less likely you were to
encounter the flotsam and jetsam of hillbilly detritus so we would
usually try and get to the fourth pond. The trade-off was that they
were harder to get to and the roads were much more of the off-road
type. One day when we were driving back in there the road was a little
slippery because it had rained the night before and at some point my
mom thought that the best idea would be to turn around before things
got bad. The really ironic bit is that he decision to turn around was
what made it dangerous. She had not planned ahead and turned off the
road and downhill toward the canal that connects the ponds and then
panicked and tried to back up, but her wheels were slipping because
the ground was wet and she had lost he momentum. Fearing that she
might slide into the canal and kill us all she made all the kids jump
out and she told us to run the two miles or so up the road for help
if she slid into the canal and drowned. We stood back and she turned
the wheel hard and gunned the engine and then let off the break and
manged to turn just a few feet before the canal and drive back up
onto the road. We were relived that she didn't die but we also had no
more need for excitement so we loaded up and went home. As they say,
discretion is the better part of swimming.
