Hogans Creek..Blue's Blog

Hogans Creek was a wide, but not so wide a creek that a fairly good swimmer couldn't easily cross it..It flowed clean and gentle and was shaded by age old trees with wild grapevines climbing the trunks and wandering out the limbs big around as my daddys arms, and finally hanging just above the surface of the water. The grapevine made a wonderful swing for three sisters and a brother to see who could swing the highest and the farthest before dropping into the deepest part of the creek.

Most of our hot summer days in the late 1940's were spent here after a morning of berry picking for mom to make us a cobbler for supper, or to make some jelly for our cornbread.. Sometimes we took the shortcut home through the neighboring farmers cow pasture in search of the largest, driest cow patties we could find to compete with each other in the "patty rolling down the hill contest"..

Hogans Creek was not only our swimming hole, it was also a place for the whole family to take a bar of homemade soap and wash the dirt of the day off as long as the weather permitted.
Upstream from where we played and bathed was a good fishing spot where Daddy would catch a big string of crappie (sunfish, we called them) several times a week for our supper..There was a very shallow spot on the other side where we would catch the crawdads and gather tiny unknown shells and one time we found what daddy said was a real indian arrow head
that must have lodged between the rocks during the last flooding.

The creek was mostly gentle and kind to us..However it could swell quickly and rage angrily from its bank and destroy anything in its path in a heavy spring rain, and we learned to stay clear from it at those times..It would just as quickly return to its banks..

From the slippery edge of the creek there was a narrow footpath between the tall grass and wild honeysuckle that led to a weatherbeaten old house with a loose board on the backside that the honeybees had claimed to set up their honey making business..We respectfully left the bees to their business, because of the delicious honey they gave us.

.At the end of the house was an old wooden barrel with a lid on it that sat under a broken downspout..We removed the cover when it rained to collect the fresh, sweet smelling and soft rainwater to wash our hair with and to use to wash and rinse the clothes on wash day..

Mom filled the wash tubs with hot water from the wood stove in the smoke house and took her wash board from the nail high on the wall, because it was a necessity she could not afford to have us playing with..

To be continued..maybe