This is my post for #memoirmonday prompt When You Were a Child, What Did You Look Forward to Most? hosted by @ericvancewalton
Since I grew up at a campground that was at an inlet, I had two things that I looked forward to the most, they were swimming and fishing. My dad had to make sure we could swim at a very young age. He raised 7 kids there, and it is nothing less than a miracle that all 7 of us survived.
I can remember Dad throwing me from the dock and me dog peddling to keep my head above water. He would dive in after me but would not let me touch him as we went toward shore, that is how we all learned to swim.
All of us became excellent swimmers and divers, we never wore a mask or had dive tanks or a snorkel.
It was saltwater and the people who came there could not believe the saltwater did not bother our eyes. I was 32 years old before I wore a mask, this was when we were growing clams.
This was the first treasure boat that docked at Dad's dock, it belonged to Kip Wagner who first found the treasure from the 1715 Spanish fleet that sunk near my home. It was so much fun to dive from the top of the cabin and to swim under it.
There were two fishermen that Dad let me go fishing with, one was Uncle Richard, who was not really an Uncle. He was my first love or crush, I was just a young child but I loved that man. He lived across the river from my home and sometimes when Dad was going to his house, I could ride in the boat with Uncle Richard, we always beat Dad there which I found funny, at his house I would follow him everywhere and always wanted to help him with whatever he was doing. I was probably in the way more than I helped but he never told me no I could not help. It did not matter if he was gardening, working in his shed, or even butchering his rabbits for dinner I was there. He whistled while he worked.
The other fisherman was named A.M. He was very old, and he took me net fishing, I helped him pick up his net and get the fish out of it.
I looked forward to shrimping season, but we did not have it easy doing this like the people in the picture, Dad had 4X8 foot nets that he hung from the dock and we kids had to pull them and dump the shrimp into a wash tub and carry them to his store where he had holding tanks.
I loved to play with fish that other people caught, this is a stingray that my sister and I are playing with.
I looked forward to the regular campers that came, the ones that had children, I loved taking them back to the pig pen where we kept Bill our boar. I did not look forward to when Bill got out of his pen, he would scare the campers and I had to go get him. If I could not find a piece of rope to put around his neck, I had to grab him by one hear and lead him back to the pen. He had huge tusks that made him look mean but he was not mean.
I looked forward to fishing from my rock, it had a curve to it that fit my bottom. I never caught much from there but it was my rock and I did not like it when a camper was sitting on it..
When my brother went diving in the ocean, I looked forward to playing with the things he brought back to the house, like these lobsters. I remember one time he brought back a huge conch and decided to boil it to get it out of its shell. He boiled it for hours on hours and with a big fork and tongs he pulled and pulled on it trying to get it to release from the shell. I think it finally came out, but I do not remember how it was done, as a child I probably got bored and left it to him.
I looked forward to going to town, if Dad had business near the playground he left us there while he did what he had to do. If he was grocery shopping we had to sit in the car and wait for him, there was no playground on that side of town.
I loved it when my cousins came to the inlet and we could play with them.
My fondest memory is every Sunday making the drive to Grandma's house, we had to cross a 2-mile wooden bridge and Dad would go so fast that it felt like we would go airborne, he would yell weeeeeeeeee and it felt like we would lose our stomachs. All of my Dad's brothers and sisters would be there with my cousins, we had to stay outside and play until dinner time, but we never complained about this, we explored the woods or went down to the creek and fished. We picked oranges to eat and drank water from a hose that was sulfur water.