This Nostalgic Life #49
Beating the Heat
This Nostalgic Life is a free weekly publication rich with nostalgia brought to you by co-creators Eric Vardeman and Mick Lee. If this is your first time reading, you can subscribe using the button below so you don’t miss receiving any future issues delivered straight to your inbox.
Welcome to another edition of This Nostalgic Life. In this issue, Eric and Mick are reflecting on the ways they used to beat the heat in the summertime, so this is a bit of a wet issue. We hop you enjoy it, and if you do, consider forwarding it on to someone you think would like it too.
Oklahoma Summers
by Eric Vardeman
In the early 80’s, when I was between the ages of eleven and fourteen, summertime was, as it was for most people my age, my favorite time of year. I was your typical GenX child: leave the house in the morning, maybe show back up at lunchtime, back home for sure at dinner then back out again till the street lights came on. Most summer afternoons involved some sort of water activity to quell the sweltering Oklahoma heat. Aside from the routine sprinkler action or an occasional Slip n Slide event (store bought and homemade), we had two city pools to choose from. The first one, Sooner pool, was located in a park, oddly enough named Sooner Park, which was less than a mile from my house. It was large, had one regular diving board, and was usually packed to the gills. This is the one we frequented the most just because of it’s proximity to our neighborhoods. It cost a buck to get in for the day (they’d stamp your hand so if you had to leave you could come back) and had a cheap snack bar. The other draw of this pool was it’s proximity to the park which was home to, among other attractions, Sooner tower. The tower stood at a little over 50’ at it’s spire. After climbing out of the pool we’d often climb our way to the top. If there was a summer breeze, sitting at the top was a great way to dry off before setting off on our next activity.
Roughly five miles across town sat Frontier pool. The allure of Frontier pool that made us trek across town via back roads and dirt trails was it’s diving boards. It had 5m, 7m, and 10m diving platforms. 10m in the queen’s English translates to 32+ feet. Up. In the air. Using normal, residential measurements, that’s roughly three stories. People of all ages were allowed to hurl their bodies off into the void. Amazingly, there were no age/height/weight restrictions. I saw little kids climb to the summit and jump off the highest platform like it was nothing. At my current age of fifty five, I cannot fathom that, as a preteen punk, I had the audacity and courage to jump off that 10m platform. These days I would wet my pants and walk back down to the side of the pool.
Also in the early 80’s, an entertainment park opened in our town. Aptly named “10 Acres” because it covered ten square acres of land, they boasted two water slides, go-carts, a game room and an official BMX track. It was possible for us to ride our bikes there but we had to cross a major highway to get to it so most of the time we had to rely on someone to take us. It also cost quite a bit more, comparatively, than the city pools so we were lucky if we got to go there once a month but when we did we made a day of it. When the place finally shut down in the late 80’s, the rumor going around was they were shutting down because a worker died on one of the water slides after hours. That was never proven. I’ve search and searched for pictures of that place (I even called the library in my hometown to see if they had anything) but I came up empty handed.
Finally, in what I will classify as “the dumbest option” for summer entertainment as it relates to water…
There’s a creek that runs behind the house I grew up in. It’s an offshoot of a larger creek, Turkey Creek, that runs through and around nearby neighborhoods. Whenever there was moderate rain, the drainage from Turkey Creek would cause this creek to get out of hand fairly fast. It would overrun it’s banks easily and the water would run very rapidly. About fifty yards upstream from my parent’s house, this creek ran though a rather large drainage pipe under a major street. It the creek was at the right level, we would use a pool mattress and float down creek and through the drainage pipe to the other side. I don’t know that our parents ever knew we were doing this. We gave no thought to our safety and on more than one occasion, it took someone longer to pass through the pipe than it should have. Ah, the stupidity of youth, right?
Summers At South Holston Lake
by Mick Lee
Being nestled deep in the Appalachian mountains, going to the beach might as well have been like going to the moon. But while we don’t have beaches and oceans to enjoy, what we do have are plenty of rivers and lakes. And to be honest with you, I’d rather live near a lake than at the beach. That’s probably because I got so used to lake life spending every summer of my teenage years at South Holston Lake.
From my eighth grade year in school in 1991 through the early 2000s, my family kept a camper at a lakeside campground year round. Almost every weekend from April through early October was spent at the lake during those years. And in the summer when school was out, sometimes we’d spend whole weeks there.
Those weekends when I was that young were so much fun there. I’d get out of school on Friday afternoon, and then we’d make the 30 minute drive down there and not come back home until Sunday evening. At that age, the weekend was spent walking all over the campground and hanging out with other kids my age, fishing, and hanging out at the playground playing pickup basketball and pickup volleyball.
Fast forward to my later teen years in the mid-late ‘90s and that was the era that I had the most fun, and miss the most. I was working at that time, and in the summer I got to work day shift Monday through Friday with the weekend off. I’d pack a bag for the weekend on Thursday night and throw it in my truck so I didn’t even have to stop at home after work on Friday before heading to the lake.
Mom would leave out on Friday afternoon as well heading that way, and would stop at a bakery thrift store and pick up hamburger and hotdog buns for the weekend. She’d also stop at a produce stand for fresh vegetables. She’d arrive there at some point, I’d arrive at some point, my brother would roll in after work, and Dad would get there when he could as well.
Keeping a camper there for years meant that we got to know our “neighbors” there quite well too, as they also kept a camper there year round. So it was a lot of fun rolling into the camp ground and seeing who was there already, and then greeting the others as they rolled in on Friday evening at all times.
On Friday evenings, it was usually just grilled burgers and dogs for dinner since everyone was arriving at different times. Then we’d head over to the fishing peer and fish for bass until after dark. We’d usually close out Friday nights around the campfire talking and having fun. Sometimes as many 25 people sitting around telling lies and laughing.
On Saturday mornings Mom would get up real early and ride back to town to pick up a dozen or so biscuits from Hardees with which to make tomato biscuits when everyone got up. Saturdays were full of various fun. Maybe water skiing or just swimming. Maybe just riding around the park in golf carts, or playing frisbee golf.
But on Saturday evenings we’d have a community dinner with our neighbors. Someone may be grilling pork chops for everyone while someone else make a few dozen ears of corn. Others brought baked beans or potato salad. You never knew what you were going to find on the four or five picnic tables that were joined together for dinner.
And after dinner on Saturday nights was poker. We’d break off into three or four tables playing quarter poker for a few hours. Then we’d load up in the boats and go out fishing until sunrise. We’d make our way back to the dock and then head to the camper for a few hours sleep before we had to get up and start putting things away for another weekend.
It was such a bummer having to pack up and leave every Sunday, but the thought of going back on Friday really helped me get through the work week mentally.
Besides all of the trips that I took with Dad through the years, those weekends in the summer at South Holston lake are the dominate memories I think of when I sit and daydream about summer.
Thanks for taking the time to read this issue. We’re always so happy to see so many people read each issue, and always enjoy the feedback we receive. If you’d like to reach out and share something with us, just drop us a line!
Love the images, so many shared memories here!!