Like I said earlier, once you go through the gate, you cross Turkey Creek on a concrete bridge that’s really just a slab poured over four good-sized metal culverts. Usually, the bridge has at least a seep of creek water running over it, but it had been a dry July, and there was no water in the creek as far up or downstream as the eye could see. It seemed just a ditch of overturned rocks. Past the low-water bridge, there is a thin strip of old-growth oak and sycamore forest, shady and perpetually smelling of rotting leaves, before the woods opens into the brushy field that I have already mentioned a few times.. Going on straight, the ruts of the road were barely visible in the brown weeds drooping every which way from a lack of moisture, but cutting up to the left over a sandy berm was a path well-worn and mashed down into the bank by the vehicles passing over it. Uncle Boog pulled the shift down into second gear and crept up over the sandy mound, which was unusual because most people in vehicles that could handle it liked to try and get a little air over the natural ramp, but he was being cautious for some reason which was a bit of character for him. I figured he knew something that I didn’t, and I still don’t.
Anyhow, we come up over the saddle hump and right in front of us is the swimming hole at the Pour Off. The place is so named because the creek usually flows off a horseshoe-shaped three-foot ledge into a circular pool some say is twenty feet deep. I have my doubts about it being that deep, but I’ll not be the one to prove or disprove it. When water is cascading over the edge of the dark brown rocks making a bubbly, frothy wave below, it makes for a beautiful sight and pleasing sounds to the ear. It is a peaceful place often made even more heavenly by the playful shouts of children splashing in the cold water, or, of a warm, summer night, by a radio playing low in the background as you count the stars in the sky with your latest sweetheart. That day, no water splashed over the ledge because of the previous month of drought, but the hole was still full of cold and crystal-clear water. They say there is a spring at the bottom the Pour Off that puts out thousands of gallons per minute year round. I reckon that could be so because the swimming hole stays at the same level even when no water flows over the ledge. It’s funny, though, how the water disappears back into the ground within 100 feet down below the swimming hole, and the creek is dry again. I sure wish somebody would explain that to me in a way that makes sense. Where does the water go?
On the rise to the left of the swimming hole is the Pour Off Pavilion. It’s your basic garden-type shelter that provides shade from the sun and cover from the rain. It doesn’t have sides to it, only a roof. I would say it is probably about thirty feet wide and fifty feet long though I never had reason to measure it. The posts, crossbeams, and rafters are made of thick, knotty logs that look like they were cut down, carved, and notched with hatchets and axes back in the pioneer days. The roof lathes though are fairly new, barely even grayed yet, and somebody had put new corrugated metal roofing on it three years before. I don’t know who. They must have done it of the winter when me and the boys don’t come down here much. They also poured a concrete slab on the far end toward the woods and built a large stone fireplace with a chimney and a rebar grill big enough to roast a half a hog or a hundred hamburgers. That same person must have put the picnic table up on the new concrete end because it wasn’t there before neither. The fireplace and picnic table are right handy for picknickers and partiers. I sure hope somebody thanked whoever did all that work. A little appreciation can be worth more than a lot of money, I’ve heard say.
Anyhow, the rest of the floor under the pavilion is soft with a dusty gray dirt and has a hollowed-out concavity in the middle from all the traffic walking into and through it for probably a hundred years. Sometimes, when there is a lot of rain, it looks like a little stock pond under there with a spillway directing the water out the end of the shelter. It’s a wonder it never all just washed off in flood. I guess somebody must have set those posts really deep.
Next to the front corner of the pavilion is a light pole that used to have a nightlight on it. You know, the kind with the metal hood and plastic cover with a big, buzzing bulb inside of it. That nightlight had been shot so many times that where the light fixture should have been it looked like a piece of water pipe with wires sticking out. There wasn’t any light left to it. That day, at the top of the power pole fiddling with the frayed wires sticking out of the metal conduit, Gopher Lewis was hanging. He had boot spikes on his heels jammed down into the pole and was leaning back into a utility belt like he was a sitting in a chair as he connected the wires of a long, orange extension cord to the nightlight wires. I don’t know how he was keeping from getting electrocuted or at least stung a bit, but nothing seemed to be jolting him as he tied one wire after another. At the bottom of the pole, looking up at Gopher from beneath the brim of a seagrass straw Panama Jack hat and a fat hand shielding his eyes from the blaze of setting sun, was the famous or infamous Ozzie Plimpton. I reckon you’ll probably want to be hearing about those two guys. I’ll tell you all about them when I get a chance to talk again. Y’all come back now.
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