I grew up on a street named Shoal Creek. Running behind our property was, well, Shoal Creek. Back in the day (you know, not so long ago), it actually had water in it. Water that would go all the way up to your waist (if you were a young child, that is). Nasty, icky, gross water that was home to various types of aquatic creatures including, but not limited to, perch, catfish, ducks, turtles, and water moccasins. The fence at the back of our yard was about 15 feet above the water level and about 15 feet back from the bank. To get down to the creek, one had to do a tiny bit of rock climbing (or descending). The only thing to really keep an eye out for was the poison ivy. Oh the days spent scratching and scratching (to hell with the calamine)!
When I was young and my father asked if we (my sister and I) wanted to go fishing, it was usually "down to the creek". Here is where I learned where to bait a hook with the freshest bread possible as I was not quite ready for live worms. I left those for my dad. Perch really like bread, did you know that? I even went fishing on my own one day and caught a delicious (no, not bass) catfish. Since I had been schooled in the art of "DON'T TOUCH A CATFISH!", I was quite perplexed as to how to get the bloomin' thing off my hook. As I watched it lying there on the banks, breathing (or would that be dying), I hollered up to my house for my dad to come down. Now, it is still quite a ways up the bank to the fence at the end of our property. All of maybe 50 feet, but that doesn't account for the distance to the house. Well, after resorting to screaming for about 15 minutes and no father coming down to speak of, I finally sent the catfish to its maker by ripping out its hook. Crude? Oh, yes! Would I do that now? Only if my life depended on it. But, you see, it is memories like those that get stirred up whenever my children, now exploring age, go down and do some of their own wandering. More on that later.
One year, the creek froze (quite rare in central Texas), so my friend and I took tealights and sat out on the ice with our candles. It was surreal and wonderful and thrilling all at once! We even went for a walk for a good distance down the creek and when we heard a crack, we hightailed it back up the creek and up the bank! Over the years, the water got very cold in winter, but never froze again.
Towards the end of my 6th grade year, Austin received some of the heaviest and copious amounts of rainfall. At some point in the evening, my dad took me down to the fence and we peeked over and saw deep, angry, churning water flowing down the creek. The water had risen about 5 feet above normal and wow was it exciting to watch! To me, this was some thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime stuff! A couple hours later, well past bedtime, my dad grabbed a flashlight and took me back down again to see what the creek had gotten up to. It was hard to see in the dark and the trees lining the upper bank didn't help, but the one thing that was unmistakable was the horrible sound of mad, furious rushing water! By now, the water had risen above the bank (this is now more than 15 feet above the normal level) and I could hear it as it rushed by, on the other side of the trees. It was scary and humbling to know that only days before, my sister and I had been down on the banks playing and chucking rocks in the water to scare the fish. The next day and years later I would find out that the Memorial Day Flood, as it came to be known, had taken lives and destroyed much of downtown Austin (close to the creek). Fishing was never the same and destroyed dams down the creek never held water that same as it was before.
In all my years of exploring the banks of the creek, I never discovered anything as interesting as what my own children have found down there. I am blessed to have my parents still living in the house that I grew up in. The creek is now barren and dry. On the occasion that Austin gets a decent rainfall, the creek will have pockets of water that last until they evaporate. In between those times, my kids have gone exploring down there, only now they can actually walk in the dried up creek bed. They have returned with some pretty unusual stuff. Just last summer they found the business end of an old time push mower. What possessed them to bring it up is beyond me but then I am no longer 10 with a vivid imagination! But I think that what they found yesterday must surely top them all! As the story goes, my mother and sister were sitting in the house when they heard the water turn on outside.
Mom: "I wonder how muddy they got."
Sister: "I wonder what they found." Quite prophetic, you think?
They went to the back door and opened it to see my kids using the house to wash off this...thing...that was rolling around their feet. This is what they found:
My daughter wanted to know where she could put it in her room.
I just laughed.
Oh, the banks of Shoal Creek. What else do you have in store for us?
