Summer Playground
With a big plastic cup in hand, I run across the lawn feeling the cool soft grass under my
bare feet. I slow down as I approach the edge of the bank where the grass is tall and the bank is
sandy and steep. I sit down and swing my feet around on to the cool pebbles at the edge of the
running water. As I stand up I feel my feet mold around the rocks and the hard uneven pressure
on the tender parts of my feet. As I begin to walk into the running current I notice the cold water
accompanied by the stabbing sharp pain of unknown objects underfoot. It’s May and my feet are
still tender from being held hostage in shoes all winter. By August I won’t even notice the
intrusion. As I peer into the running water around me, I try to decipher my own reflection from
the rocks below the surface. I’m looking for just the right rock, big enough to do the job yet not
so big that I can’t easily pick it up. Hmmm….there’s one! I slowly approach it being careful not
stir up the sediment that surrounds its base. As I bend over I carefully lift its upstream side
anxiously looking at what lies beneath while, at the same time, I strategically place the cup under
the water downstream from the rock, timing is very important here. As I pry the rock up I see
movement of tiny claws and beady eyes moving backwards away from my glare, that’s my
queue, I quickly lift the rock! An eruption of brown sediment billows into the space where the
rock once lay and I feel scurrying movement in my cup – “Got ya!” I murmur triumphantly as I
lift the cup full of murky water into the air! As the water slowly clears I examine the funny little
crustacean in the bottom of my cup, known in these parts as a crayfish!
Events like this filled my summer as I spent many hours in the Chagrin River behind my
Aunt Betty's house, a place affectionately known simply as “the cabin”. Along with catching
crayfish, my siblings and I also entrapped minnows, frogs and an occasional turtle. When we
weren’t hunting down innocent, unsuspecting critters, we were swimming in the swimming hole
upstream, having stone skipping competitions or collecting clay from the banks to make
magnificent works of art, proudly presented to mom, dad and Aunt Betty. These activities kept
us busy for hours and days on end, we would get lost in the adventure of it all. Aunt Betty used
to say that she didn’t need to go to church because the river was her sanctuary and the rippling
current her song. All I knew was that it was our own private playground where curiosity was our
guide into the many small worlds that swirled in its watery orbit, and I was the envy of all my
friends.
It wasn’t til I got older that I really understood the true meaning of this special place for me
and my siblings. Throughout our entire lives we marked the years by weekly Sunday visits and
Holiday gatherings. Weddings, baptisms, graduations and birthdays marked our life transitions
and the scattering of ashes in the river’s current spurred healing tears for the loss of both parents
and my beloved nephew. This magical place created the foundation of our close family bond
and, in so many ways, defined each one of us. It is true that you can never step in the same river
twice as its current creates a swirl of constant beginnings, just as in life we can only embrace
each moment as it presents itself, never stopping the hands of time.
Soon we will gather again on river’s edge to scatter the ashes and say goodbye to yet
another beloved family member. This time it is the one who is synonymous with all the river has
meant to us and the keeper of its song, the one that gave us each undying love and support as if
we were her own. Also soon we will be commemorating the births of three new babies in the
family with baptisms and first birthdays, a celebration of new life. The current continues and the
beat goes on...