Sand Traps

Growing up there was an old picture framed hanging over the davenport (northerners call it a sofa I hear) at the farm.
I was told at one point it was a painting of "the old pond" that had since dried up. But since hardly anything I was told at the farm was true I suspected for a few years that it wasn't actually.

I was told that the pond I usually swam in, and lost my shoe in, was the "new pond". It was man made because the original "natural" pond had mostly dried up years before.

My grandfather would allow people to pay to fish in his pond and he would take the grandchildren out to fish with him too. I mostly played around the pond and removed fish lenses from their eyes once my cousins caught them, but I called it fishing... :)

I remember wandering away from the "new pond" while my grandfather was fishing one day. He was with a customer so my sisters, cousins and I wandered down a path and stumbled upon the "old pond". I was about 6 or 7 and had on burgundy hard shoes.
I remember because I left them there.
As we were climbing around the mucky bottom of the old pond I started sinking. I got stuck and couldn't get out. My cousins and sister created a chain and tried to pull me out, I think there was a really long stick involved. But I was stuck and stuck good. By the end I was almost up to my waist in muck. (although in my memory it was actually quick sand)

My cousins ran up to the new pond and seeing that our grandfather was still in the middle of the pond with his customer they ran up to the house for their dad and mine. They came chugging back and I was pulled to freedom. Finally!

At least, I think that's what happened. I'm told it never happened. I'm told I WAS caught in the muck in the general vicinity of the pond and that there WAS an old pond that had dried up on the property but it had dried up and grass had grown over it when my grandparents filled it in with the dirt from the man made pond.
But in my head, I once almost died sinking into quick sand and there's nothing you can do to talk me out of it dammit.


(small aside: years...and I mean YEARS...later the painting hung in my living room over my sofa. I told the story above to Dan about the old pond and he laughed for an obnoxiously long time. I asked him why he was laughing and he pointed out the WAVES cresting in the picture and the CLIFFS in the background and asked me how I could wonder if it was really a pond since most ponds don't have either cliffs or waves..but whatever I digress)