foxysdad's Journal

Journal Entry for May 15, 2008 Mood

Thursday, May 15, 2008

In one of my groups, one of the topics was childhood memories. It's funny how some memories come to mind more than others. One of my fondest is about a place we called "Lion Head". We have a fantastic city park in my hometown. I would love to try to describe it to you, but it'd take a long, long time. So, let me describe to you a part of it. A very beautiful part Lion Head. Lion Head is an outcropping of limestone that looks like a lion's head. The stone on top looks like a lion's mane. And it looks like the lion's mouth is open. Coming from the lion's mouth down the middle of it's "tongue" is clear cold water. So pure you can drink it. The city made a small pond for the water. There's a hole at one end to allow the water the flow into another pool, then down a trail of limestone to a creek. There's a concrete "stopper" you can put in the hole and the pool will fill, but not overflow. In the late 40's and early 50's when I was 3 to 6 years old, my mom would take my sisters and me there. You couldn't see Lions Head from the street, so Mom would park the car on the street and we'd walk about 50 yards to the pool. It was down a small, sloping hill. Big trees formed a canopy over it. The first thing we'd do was get a cold drink of the cold water coming from the mouth. We had our bathing suits on and Mom would put the stopper in the hole and the pool would fill. It seemed deep at the time. The water came up to my shoulders. I guess it was really a wading pool. The water was so cold, it took several minutes to get used to it. On a hot summer's day there was nothing better than Lions Head and the idea of drinking water coming out of the ground and not through a pipe was exciting. I wrote an article for the local newspaper about it a few years ago. Funny how that memory has stayed with me so long. I must see it again someday. Or should I? Would it take away the memory? Should I just keep the memory and not see the reality of that wonderful place? Childhood memories are so precious. Why spoil this one?