Skinny Dip

Dear Boo and Bubble,

During your great, great, great grandmother Mamie Peninah’s life, The Blues became a sort of sanctuary for our family.  It wasn’t just a place for the few.  She opened it up to anybody who wanted to come.  Her particular crusade was to create an environment where cousins could congregate and get to know each other better.  In this way, she hoped to instill in them the strong bonds which knitted her eight children so tightly together.  

After Mamie died on D-Day In 1944, Aunt Mittie took up the mantle of matriarch at The Blues.  She dedicated herself to carrying on the traditions that Mamie started, particularly the cousin gatherings. 

When I was about ten years old, Mittie and her spinster daughter, Annie, invited some of the girl cousins to spend a little time at The Blues.  The group came from several branches of the family.  Kathy and Betsy Poerschke and I stemmed from Mattie.  Rachel Hicks belonged to Jessie.  Ann Rebecca and Candace Madden were Mittie’s own granddaughters.

The second night that we were there, Mittie called us to dinner out on the screened porch off the kitchen.  We assembled around the big picnic table, wiggly and giggly as girls can be, and feasted on fried chicken or hamburgers or hot dogs that Mittie had prepared.  As we wound down the meal, Mittie summoned our attention.  “Girls…tonight we have a surprise for you.” 

“Wow” we shouted in unison.  “What is it?  Tell us. Tell us now.”

“Well,” Mittie hesitated.  “As soon as you finish dinner and clear off the table…..”

Our eyes widened…

“Annie is going to take you skinny dipping down in the river!”

It took a few seconds to sink in.  Skinny Dipping…a term which we all had heard before, but with which we had no personal experience.  The thought of taking off our clothes and consciously parading down the path to the big rock and jumping into the ice cold waters of the Saluda was met with both exhilaration and trepidation. Sniggering circulated around the table as we tried to hide our pubescent embarrassment.

Once dinner ended and Mittie gave the signal, we scampered into the big room with the bunk beds and began stripping off our clothes.  The result – a lineup of body types ranging from toothpick to pencil to rosebuds to full bloom.  Any shyness or awkwardness, however, melted away at the sight of Annie as she came out of the front bedroom au natural.

By this time, total darkness had descended.  Annie took a flashlight and led us out of the house, down the steps and on to the path towards the river.  We could hardly contain ourselves.  It was, for each of us, our very first provocative act. 

We huddled in a line behind Annie as she scoped out the path with the flashlight.  The cool night air penetrated our skin and we shivered a little as goose bumps popped up all over.  At the river, we had to hop onto a smaller rock before making the final leap to the big rock out in the middle.  The tentative giggles that started at The Blues crescendoed into squeals of laughter as we skipped around on the granite surface forestalling our plunge into the water.

All of a sudden, from the bank just downstream of the rock shone a bright light waving frantically, moving back and forth across us like some sort of police raid.  A base, guttural voice yelling “HAH…HAH….HAH…I see you now” accompanied its beam.  Very threatening and sinister chuckles followed evoking high pitched shrieks from all of us – especially Annie who tucked her legs together and bowed over covering her breasts with her arms.  In a panic, we jumped into the frigid river, not giving it a thought.  At least our poor naked bodies would be covered.

The light went out and we heard an uncontrollable laugh coming from the spot……and a recognizable one, too.  It was our older cousin Wade Bryant who had come up from Greenville to do some catfishing.  Undoubtedly, he heard us leaving The Blues and laid in wait as we came down the path and stepped out onto the rock.  His timing was perfect.

I always wondered if Wade happened to be there that night by chance or…….maybe, just maybe, Mittie had told him her plans for us.  It would be just like her, carrying on Mamie’s tradition of making memories.   And, boy, was our skinny dip a memory!