Cream-cicles

The scent of pines collected in the ditches that paralleled the dirt road which cut over the mountain to Corinth and the Hudson River. It was cooler here, and faint scent of the trees blew into the back seat of the 54 Chevy where Robiin and I sat on towels. The towels were to keep our wet bottoms from soaking the bench seat, but it also protected our thighs from the prickly woolen weave.

Dad had come home from the Saratogian where he worked as a printer in the composing room. On a hot July day, a swim in the Hudson in the late afternoon before dinner was a treat. But the cool dip at the beach in Cornith was lost in the back seat after the Chevy sat on the street windows rolled up while we swam.

Today, I went to the beach, a dirt pit strip along the shore. (Once you’ve seen and felt real sandy beaches, you never can go back to dirt.) I learned to swim here, from dog paddle to a modified free-style stroke that I never improved until a Master Swimmer got tired of watching my awkward kick in the Kona pool a couple of years ago. I taught myself to dive off the dock and raft that sat in the middle of the river, beyond the swimming area ropes. To go beyond the ropes meant I could swim. To swim out to the raft meant you were a big kid. Robin use to dive off the raft and disappear into the dark water. She would not surface right away, making everyone nervous. Eventually she’d surface from the deep having gone to the bottom. Dad taught her to flatten out her hands once she hit the water so she wouldn’t keep going straight down like a rock.

I use to race down the slope, crash into the shallow water, dive head first, hit the river bottom with my outstretched hands, grab a handful of dirt and surface with two globs of muck, flinging material if the life guard wasn’t watching. More likely, after a close examination for gold, pennies or common stones and soda bottle caps, the guck washed away in the current to sink back to the bottom.

Unlike Robin, I never went to the bottom of the river from the raft. Both the dock and the raft are gone, but the ropes are still in the water, making the swimming area not much more than a place to splash and play the insane and irritating game of Marco Polo. That game should be outlawed.

On hot summer weekends Mom came with us. We’d spend so much time in the water we literally turned blue. Mom would make us stand in front of her and if we shivered, we had to come out. Hard as I tried not to shake, eventually the natural reflex got the best of me and I’d start to tremble. Half an hour on the blanket to recover to a normal skin color seemed like an eternity.

There was an independent grocery store across the street. Hot sidewalks and street surfaces made walking barefoot across the street a quick challenge. How did they walk on fire? Mom would buy each of us a cream-cicle. The white and orange treat melted faster than I could eat it. If nothing fell on the sidewalk, life was good.

I sat on the beach and listened to the kids play. I watched a young boy lay on the sand, dig a hole and plow a dump truck through the water. Little girls in cheap one piece suits with saggy bottoms after weeks of wear giggled in the shallow water and played Marco Polo. Gone were teenagers. No teen boys eyeing girls. No girls looking too cool to notice. What do teens do these days? Mothers sat in lawn chairs at the water’s edge.

It was long ago I swam here. Life was good. Still is.