When I was 5 years old and my sister was 7, our family had just finished picking the last field of cotton. It was almost noon so Mama suggested we carry our lunch to the swimming hole to celebrate. Daddy led us into the nearby woods and down a steep path into a cavernous creek bed where the air was noticeably cooler. We followed an almost invisible ribbon of clear water flowing through thousands of small pebbles to a low waterfall. Here, it babbled and spilled over a rocky ledge into a bed of boulders forming a 2- to 4-foot deep pool. My sister and I sat on the ledge, dangling our feet and eating lunch as we quietly listened to birds chirping in the towering canopy overhead.

We were mesmerized by the pool’s perpetual movement as the waters rose, overflowed, and merrily continued down the creek bed.

As we examined the fist-sized cupped holes in the boulders, Daddy explained Indians had once ground acorns into flour there. Then we waded into the breathtaking coolness of the swimming hole’s refreshing waters.

Carol Thomas, Wadesboro, a member of Rutherford EMC