When I was 11 I took off from the little town of Wawaka walking with Tommy Donat (seems funny that Tommy’s last name sounded like Donut!) to the Elkhart River, about one half mile from home. The river was a favorite place for fishing. We caught suckers, carp, shiners, catfish and sunfish. But this was a day for swimming and goofing around at Bare Ass Beach.
On that nice summer day we took off our shoes, got out of our clothes, and splashed around in the river. So cool and fun! After a while we started walking along the bank of the river.
Ahead of us was a big tree that had fallen over with the trunk lying out in the river with mud all around. The mud looked like chocolate pudding skin — real smooth, with water bugs trailing across it and small fallen branches sticking up here and there. The tree trunk was large enough for us to walk on so for the fun of it we started slowly walking out on the trunk.
At some point, 15 or 20 feet from the bank of the river, I took a careless step and slipped off the trunk into the mud. In no time at all I was knee deep, and very soon up to my rear end! Very scared, I reached out for Tommy who tried to pull me back up on the log. I felt suction, like the mud was pulling on me. The harder Tommy pulled, the more the mud sucked me down. My mind went unconsciously to all the cowboy movies showing quicksand pools and people getting stuck in the quicksand and being pulled under.
At some point I was so exhausted fighting the mud sucking on my body and Tommy pulling on me that I wrapped my arms around the top of the trunk to rest. I realized that the sucking stopped. I just rested. I could just see over the top of the trunk and saw a blackbird sitting on a broken branch. We watched each other as I caught my breathe. The scene from above must have been a sight — one boy stark naked standing on a fallen tree trunk and not knowing what to do next. Another boy stuck in the mud, thinking of death and clinging to the fallen tree trunk. A blackbird perched and perplexed by the scene.
After a rest and a desire to live it seemed the only way to get out of the mud was by pulling myself up on the trunk. It was not easy. My feet had nothing but mud to touch. So my little 11 year old arms just worked and worked until I edged myself up high enough to lift one leg up on the tree trunk. With a final heave-ho I was up on the log. We walked slowly, carefully, but deliberately off the fallen tree trunk onto the river bank.
What do you think happened next? We ran as fast as we could to get our clothes and got dressed, put our shoes on and ran away from the Elkhart River and across the hay field. We didn’t stop until we got to Wawaka, parted ways and went to our homes. I still get the heebie-jeebies when I see big flat pools of chocolate pudding skins of mud.
Finally getting back on your comment. Carrot cake sounds good.
Do you need to have a dream guru care for your croc dreams. Sounds like deep murky doo-do!
I would certainly consider ordering carrot cake or any number of things other than chocolate pudding. 💜.
Quicksand is a childhood memory that is scary.
I have a recurring dream that I am lying on a beach by a swamp and mt legs don't work, a here comes a big croc. Yipes: