Bottoms Up

Goodbye August, hello summer—but of course, goodbye California. These are the summers that I remember from years ago: fog, fog, fog, and then, halfway through August, sunshine and warmth into mid-September, ever so unfortunately overlapping the beginning of school. Maybe this summer was abnormally foggy, not sure, but there is a sadness to this final showing of the sun as the tardy bell sounds. It is a pity that school starts so early, it is not kind to teachers or students or families or businesses, especially not in this county. Of course, the child that skulked off to junior high this morning despises this heat, this true summer weather; he despises school also, but these temperatures drive him inside, where we have trapped the cool night air for midday relief.

On days like this, eighty degrees by nine and climbing, my best friend and I used to go to the creach. We would creek walk down Bean, picking blackberries and disguising ourselves with rock paint. At the merging of Bean with Zayante we would have polar bear contests, arguing over who stayed under longer. We would roll on the rocky and sandy shore, calling ourselves corndogs, then go dancing and shrieking and giggling under the weight of Ferndale Falls. Growing bored with our surroundings, or more likely annoyed at the prospect of sharing our creach with some recently arriving and long staying strangers, we would depart up the steep isle split by the creeks and race to the boat docks. If we were lucky, we would succeed in commandeering a canoe (or rather, convincing a hot and tired lifeguard to be rid of us quickly and painlessly) and paddle beyond the turn around bridge, until we lodged in shallow water near the old docks (or so we called them) where we would hunt crawdads (our kindness not fear was the only reason we never had anything to show for our efforts, of course) and sit in the water pouring over the concrete slabs. If we met a less than compliant lifeguard, we dragged our feet away, muttering about the irascibility of the situation, about twenty yards up Zayante to the bay on the brink of the water. We would stand on its sister’s stump and swing out, legs kicking wildly, letting go at the highest point, plunging into the middle of creek—who needs a dumb canoe anyway? I remember daring each other to go without board shorts; although it was momentous that we were wearing two-pieces (that showed an inch of belly), going without shorts was scandalous in our 11-year-old minds. She had, as usual, the longest, most badass sounding dare, and unable to top her, I made her agree to do it with me. We used to race to the big cement retaining wall too, swimming across the creek in front of rowboats and canoes—she always won. We loved the water without fear. There was respect, of course, one does not swim in the creek during winter, but we loved it from before memory and we both still love creeks and rivers.