Paradise on Sugar Creek

Memorial Day 1980

 

I heard someone mention yesterday that Memorial Day is the unofficial beginning of summer.  I was instantly taken back to the days of camping and fishing on Sugar Creek with my husband and our family and friends.  Memorial Day was the absolute first day we could even consider swimming in that cold, cold water and even that deadline was iffy.  That first immersion took your breath away, especially the first of the season.  But on a hot day, there was nothing that felt as good.

When I married Robert, I gained entry to the wonderland that was his family property.  Sugar Creek wound through woods and pasture, offering up shady water holes where trout lay in wait for just the right lure to come along and sunny swimming holes for when the fish stopped biting or it was just too hot to care about fish.  There are no creeks on the farm where I grew up, so fishing was a new pastime for me and the nearest good swimming creek was a few miles away so I usually had to make do with the public swimming pool in town.  This place was paradise! 

The creek ran right alongside the road  and continued in front of the two houses where Robert’s parents and grandparents lived.  Our camping spot was on the edge of the pasture, only accessible by driving under a bridge over a rock covered surface didn't even really resemble a road.  You only knew it was passable (barely) if you were in on the secret and had permission to be there.

Most weekends during summer and early fall, we managed to spend some time at the creek, often camping along the banks for days at a time.  We had an old station wagon that could survive the rough trip into our preferred spot and we slept in the back on a pile of quilts.

At some point, we graduated to a tent with an air mattress that took up almost the whole floor space.  Then we bought the family pop-up camper, a stubborn device that had passed through half of Robert’s large extended family and almost resulted in divorce every time we had to put it up.  We eventually sold it to another unsuspecting member of the family and bought a regular travel trailer.

Days were spent wading for miles, fishing all the likely spots, then floating and swimming the wider and deeper sections for hours at a time.  Late in the afternoon, we would start thinking about food and Robert would build a fire for the cool night ahead.  Food never tasted so good as when it was cooked on a grill in the open air.  We learned to bury potatoes in the coals of the fire after lunch so we could have perfectly baked potatoes for supper.   If we were lucky, we would have trout or perch to go with the potatoes, but if not, steaks or chicken would do just fine.  Then we would sit for hours by the fire, listening to night sounds of birds, insects and the laps and ripples of the water that swept gently over the rocks on the way downstream.  Frogs croaked and whippoorwills called in the dusk.  Fireflies sparkled in the night and the stars have never since seemed as close as they did on those lazy nights.  We were young enough that summer seemed to last a lifetime.

Even the rain didn’t spoil our time at the creek.  A gentle rain made the fish bite, and there is no better feeling that being inside a tent that doesn’t leak during a summer shower.  And no matter how high the mercury rose, there was relief only a few steps away.  Mornings were crisp and fresh, with wisps rising off the water and the sun foretelling a perfect day.  We had some misadventures, but I don’t ever remember a bad camping trip.

Our friends and families often accompanied us on our trips.  My aunt and uncle and their family, for several years, planned a week’s vacation at the creek.  We still talk about those years and laugh about the time their kids were frightened in the night by a billy goat snuffling around the tent, or the night the younger son had a nightmare and tore the tent down on him and his brother in the middle of the night.  Some less adventurous friends came for a day at the creek.  They didn’t know what they were missing by leaving before dark.

Robert died in a wreck in 1985, lost way too early.   I’ve never been back since his mom moved away from her home overlooking Sugar Creek. The farm was sold, then sold again, and I have no idea who owns it now.  I hope they have had as many good times down there as we did. What I wouldn’t give for just one more night around a campfire beside that creek.