June of 2015
Updated on October of 2024.
Some time back, I made a trip to Rockport and not see or find anyone at the river, on lawns, the ballpark, vacant lots and in general, no one was to be found. I later made a comment that things were different back in the day, more specifically, the fifties and sixties. We did not have any video games, cell phones, computers or lap tops. Oh, we had some pretty complicated pinball machines, but it was a nickel to play one game and if you were not good enough, time on those devices did not last long. We had the river, the ball park and vacant lots to play in or on.
The Green River was not the best of places to swim, as such, but with a lot of work, we made it something to be proud of and we certainly enjoyed the fruits of our labor. The downriver side of the big pier was our main swimming hole and by hauling a lot of sand, we made it a good place to wade, swim and sun bathe.
The upriver side of the pier was deep and a good place for a diving platform, a diving board and a river swing. It was mostly the young kids that built and maintained this area for diving and jumping into the river from the swing and diving boards. A lot of work went into building and maintaining this equipment and about the only funds available were Jamie Reid furnishing nails and the mines furnishing the ropes.
Just a brief paragraph or two on the diving platform will give you an idea of just how much work a gang of young boys put in on the projects. If it was a piece of play equipment, in and around the "swimming hole", someone, and basically, young kids built it there. This, at times, also included "Washer" and Horseshoe Pitching play areas as well as a playing marble ring. Plus, Jamie Reid had an idea of a movable wooden platform at banks edge where one could step out of the river onto the platform, dry their feet and put on shoes or sandals. Ha, to some, using Ivory soap, this river was also a place to take a Saturday evening bath.
The diving platform was at water's edge, just upriver from the pier, somewhere around 30 feet high with a solid wood platform on top for diving and jumping into the river. It did have a partial guard rail at the top, and at times we would have a springy plank used as a diving board. If we could not find a board, we just used the platform to jump from. The frame of the structure was basically four maple trees that was cut from the river bank and drug to the construction site. My first memory of building a diving platform was, maybe 1950. Bobby Singleton was the "leader" and some of the help included me, Delbert Brown, Jerry and Donnie Singleton, "Slick", Charles O'Brien, Ralph Fuller, Harold Welborn, Kelly and Delbert Harris, and probably a few more that I have forgotten.
The first phase of the construction was to find four Water or Silver Maple trees, fifty feet high or so and cut them with an ax, drag them to the site, trim them to about forty feet to make our main post. We dug holes, ideally five foot deep, but more likely three feet to place the four post. The base was about 6' x 8' and tapering to the top making the platform about 4' x 6', just enough for one person. We placed 2x6 boards about half way up and at the top for bracing and for the top platform. We left 4', or so, of pole at the top for a guard rail on two sides, leaving an opening on the bank side for access to the platform and an opening on the river side for jumping. Two by fours were used to make a ladder on the bank side.
Ah, we now had a diving platform and building of the 6 foot diving board and the rope swing would be next. Weather and floods were hard on the diving platform as well as the diving board and they would last for about two to three years. Time and rights of passage waits for no one and somewhere in the time frame of 1953, it was time to build another platform. The older boys have moved on and now it was time for me to get a crew and build another diving platform. Delbert, "Slick", Donnie and Jerry Singleton were still left from the older crew and more boys were added. I am not sure of the others that helped, but the younger boys that were available consisted of Tom Durbin, John Durham, Billy Cardwell, Kelly Maddox, Lacy and George Blackburn, Dickie Curtis, Donald Ray, Larry Dortch, Jimmy Smith and others that I have probably failed to mention. It took several days to build the scaffold and the names and numbers of any crew for the day may and did change. I don't remember any scaffold after 1956, but I think there must have been one built. The younger boys like Charles Devine, Junior and Ronnie Taylor, Wilkie and "Panhandle" Decker, Wayne Tarrants, The Wilkersons', Jessie Byrd, The O'Briens', and again, a few more that I have failed to mention were now "Of Age" and it was time for them to step up and be counted. This younger crew was even more daring that my age group. Where we jumping and diving from the diving platform and the middle pier, this new crew, plus some of the local girls, were doing the same, as well as jumping from the railroad bridge and a select few even jumped from the highway bridge. That was daring.
Our diving platform was built of wood and not as fancy as the above board, but it worked just fine for us. I am sure there were a few injuries, but offhand, Spencer Minton was the only one with a bad injury that I can remember. He dived off the platform and landed in shallow water, breaking off one of his teeth. Jessie Byrd was killed when the backhoe that he was operating turned over on him, but that was not associated with the diving platform. Jessie was moving dirt for the boat ramp. Ah, the boat ramp, but that is another story.
There was a song in the mid-fifties titled "Where have all of the flowers gone" and it was performed by a lot of artist. I especially liked the version from the "Kingston Trio". That song could be changed to a new version for today's youth-"Where have all of the boys gone" and one of the lines could be "Cell phones and video games everywhere". Each generations are different. Just hope the young ones today had as much fun and enjoyed life as much as we did. I will leave it at that.
Several years ago, I updated the "Korean" section of the Rockport/Echols Web Site. A new page has also been made for Willard Key. To go to the "Korean" Page, click on the following URL and then click on a "Soldier's Block" to view the Soldier of your choice. Thanks for looking.
"Korean Veterans"
Wishing you the best for the year..
see you.....
jerry
;<)
