Remembering my playground
By Bill Shepard
During that period in our Nation’s history remembered as the Great Depression, I was a small boy living on the mill village in Darlington. Times were hard but they made beautiful memories. No person who lived through that poverty stricken time needs reminding of the hardships that were suffered. However, out of that dismal setting came some of my fondest memories; memories that have survived the best of those in the more prosperous years that followed. I was a happy child growing up under the love and security of caring parents. I was spared the worry and anxieties that the cruel times imposed upon those older than myself.
I was indeed a playboy- and the fields and meadows, woods, and pastures were my playgrounds. Swift Creek, the little stream that meanders through the length of the village, cutting it in half, and forming a sort of dividing line, was a challenge to explore. It was my imaginary Amazon on which to search for treasure, and my Mississippi on which to drift. A floating log became my make-believe raft, and my friends became Tom, Huck and Jim. Just to sit on its banks, and listen to the murmuring sounds it made, was an experience that defies description. To wonder where it came from, and where it was going, was a question begging answers that I could not give.
In the fall and early winter, the lands along the creek served as my hunting grounds. With a pocket full of rocks gathered from the nearby railroad track, and my trusty sling-shot, made with prongs cut from a tree limb, and a piece of inner tube from one of Dad’s old tires, I would go in pursuit of the wild life that sought refuge in the deep wood. At such times, in an imaginary way, I could be Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, or any other of the early frontiersmen that I had read about in school. It was for me a sort of fantasyland where I could get lost at will.
In the fall I would search for the wild muscadine that tried to hide in the tops of the tallest trees. It was not an uncommon sight, on a cool October day, to see a number of small boys sitting in the top of a tree feasting on the delicious fruit from the vines. In the dead of winter, I would revisit the same place in search of the hickory nuts that were plentiful in the big woods, if I could beat the gray squirrels to them. The adventure was overshadowed only by the thought of Mr. Anderson’s big bull that roamed freely in the bordering pastureland. Ah, what memories my playground provided!
In the springtime, the season I loved best, the lands along the little creek would turn to a nature’s flower garden. The red maples and pink redbud trees would form a picturesque backdrop for the white blossoms of the wild plum trees that bordered the adjoining pasture lands. This was the time to lay aside my slingshot and take last year’s fishing cane from its resting place in the woodshed, and be off to my favorite fishing spot near the little creek. There, the red-fin pike, and the fresh water jack, along with the redbreast and the sun-perch, flourished in the shallow waters of the slow moving stream.
I would enter the forest as an intruder and as an uninvited guest, but I always had the feeling of being at home. In my secluded position by the bubbling stream, while my fishing cork floated abreast the wrinkled waters; I could watch the creatures of the wild at play. The bark of a squirrel, the hoot of an owl, and the chirping of the birds were all sounds of music to my ears. Even the poisonous snakes that were plentiful in the murky swampland, had my respect. After all, this was more their world than mine, and I was there as a trespasser. Lost in that kind of world, the hardships of the times had no present or lasting effect on me, and I pity the man that has lived a lifetime void of such memories.
It is my opinion that few places can boast of holding more memories of children at play than this place, the playground of my childhood. The little creek still flows quietly in search of its rendezvous with Black Creek, where it loses its identity. I return often in memory and occasionally in reality. I look upon its sparkling waters and wonder if it misses me as much as I miss it.
I remember a line from somewhere, written about a river, and I hear myself repeating it – “Men may come and go, But I go on forever.”
I think, “How true!”
The Old Fishing Hole
By a slow moving creek in my hometown,
Boys would come from miles around,
With a crooked cane pole and black flax line,
We’d crowd the bank in the summertime.
School was out on the last day of May,
In-between chores there would be time for play,
With a can of worms and a cane fishing pole,
We’d all head down to the old fishing hole.
When I was a boy many hours were spent,
Finding much pleasure and it didn’t cost a cent,
And I don’t regret now that I’m old,
The time I spent at the old fishing hole.
The slow moving stream still flows along,
But besides its banks there isn’t a throng,
For times have changed the boys that be,
And they’re all home….watching TV.
Mr. Shepard is a native of Darlington, S.C., and a current resident of Piedmont, S.C. He is the author of “Mill Town Boy” and “Bruised”. He has been sharing his tales of growing up in Darlington for decades, and we are delighted to share them each week. His mailing address for cards and letters is: Bill Shepard 324 Sunny Lane, Piedmont, S.C., 29673