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When I woke up this morning I found I was lost in a childhood memory. There were several acres of woods behind our house and, as a child, I used to wander endlessly in those woods. A spring flowed out from the roots of a giant oak tree, and from that water source came a little creek. Not really big enough to play in, but just enough water to flow through the woods and water some trees and make a lovely little glen in which the banks were covered with the lushest, softest, greenest moss. Shady and cool, and the perfect place to spend a hot Mississippi summer afternoon lying on the bank and getting totally lost in a good book. Shaded glens have always been a love of mine and if you throw in some cool moss, it's even better.
Those woods were the source of many a long afternoon of delightful fun, not the least of which was our own homemade 'Tarzan' swing. It consisted of a single piece of sea-grass rope tied on the outstretched limb of an ancient dogwood tree. The tree was an oddity itself as it grew uphill. By that I mean the root source was near the bottom of a big hill and the tree had grown in the same direction as the hill itself. Not straight and tall like the trees around it but straight up the hill, so that at the top, it leaned in the same direction as the hill itself. Out from that old gnarled tree grew a single sturdy limb and on that limb my brothers had tied the old rope about midway out. How they managed to get that far out without breaking their necks never really occurred to me. The rope hung down to arm's length and at the end, they had tied a single stick, so that you could hold each end of it in your hands. If you grasped the cross stick with your hands and climbed to the top of the hill then let go, you literally went flying. You had to hold your feet up on top of the hill but once in midair, you stretched them out for the ride down the hillside. Out over the creek and through the air you flew. Just like Tarzan! Swinging on the wild grapevine. Except ours wasn't a vine. It was a seagrass rope....but oh, you could imagine. Imagine you were in the wilds of the jungle. At any moment you might hear the sound of a mighty elephant or the roar of a hungry lion. Such fun was never had by kids in a city park swinging on a swing with a bottom in it. Oh no! Ours was the real thing. In the middle of the woods. Over the creek. Down the hillside. How many times we flew down that hill as kids I will never know. What I do know is that it was almost a daily occurrence during the summer. We would sometimes take other kids to our secret swing, deep in our private jungle, and show them our own personal wonder. And they never failed to be impressed. After watching so many Saturday afternoon jungle movies with the real Tarzan our little piece of rope hung high on a tree was the nearest thing to the real thing they would ever encounter......
Once after I married I walked back down our little path through the woods just to see if our swing was still there. The path had almost grown up with underbrush since our anxious little bare feet had stopped tearing down it to our secret place.
What I found was the tattered remains of the rope, the bottom half had completely gone. The stick at the end had long since rotted and the top half of the rope was all that remained. It was frayed and tattered, the weather had done it's job of sending our beloved swing back to the earth. All that remained was the memory. Memory of long hot summer afternoons spent deep in the Mississippi woods, swinging high above the ground, out over the little creek, and back up the hill. Again and again. What we didn't realize then as children was the fact we would never again be this free. Free to hold our feet up and go flying through the air on our Tarzan swing.
Those woods were the source of many a long afternoon of delightful fun, not the least of which was our own homemade 'Tarzan' swing. It consisted of a single piece of sea-grass rope tied on the outstretched limb of an ancient dogwood tree. The tree was an oddity itself as it grew uphill. By that I mean the root source was near the bottom of a big hill and the tree had grown in the same direction as the hill itself. Not straight and tall like the trees around it but straight up the hill, so that at the top, it leaned in the same direction as the hill itself. Out from that old gnarled tree grew a single sturdy limb and on that limb my brothers had tied the old rope about midway out. How they managed to get that far out without breaking their necks never really occurred to me. The rope hung down to arm's length and at the end, they had tied a single stick, so that you could hold each end of it in your hands. If you grasped the cross stick with your hands and climbed to the top of the hill then let go, you literally went flying. You had to hold your feet up on top of the hill but once in midair, you stretched them out for the ride down the hillside. Out over the creek and through the air you flew. Just like Tarzan! Swinging on the wild grapevine. Except ours wasn't a vine. It was a seagrass rope....but oh, you could imagine. Imagine you were in the wilds of the jungle. At any moment you might hear the sound of a mighty elephant or the roar of a hungry lion. Such fun was never had by kids in a city park swinging on a swing with a bottom in it. Oh no! Ours was the real thing. In the middle of the woods. Over the creek. Down the hillside. How many times we flew down that hill as kids I will never know. What I do know is that it was almost a daily occurrence during the summer. We would sometimes take other kids to our secret swing, deep in our private jungle, and show them our own personal wonder. And they never failed to be impressed. After watching so many Saturday afternoon jungle movies with the real Tarzan our little piece of rope hung high on a tree was the nearest thing to the real thing they would ever encounter......
Once after I married I walked back down our little path through the woods just to see if our swing was still there. The path had almost grown up with underbrush since our anxious little bare feet had stopped tearing down it to our secret place.
What I found was the tattered remains of the rope, the bottom half had completely gone. The stick at the end had long since rotted and the top half of the rope was all that remained. It was frayed and tattered, the weather had done it's job of sending our beloved swing back to the earth. All that remained was the memory. Memory of long hot summer afternoons spent deep in the Mississippi woods, swinging high above the ground, out over the little creek, and back up the hill. Again and again. What we didn't realize then as children was the fact we would never again be this free. Free to hold our feet up and go flying through the air on our Tarzan swing.
What a great memory! Thank you for sharing. It reminds me of roaming the woods near our house, where Mary & Jim built their house many years later, and enjoying the cool shade in the moss & fern covered hills.
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