Playing At The Falls

Across a 15-acre pasture from our house, a little river passed through. Its name was actually Little River, and it was a river because it fed into Lake Michigan. In size, it would have been considered a creek, which is what we called it - the Creek. The creek wound its way through pretty much all of Wallace and Mellen Township, in the UP of Michigan. Walking in a straight line through the woods, you might cross the same creek three times.

Anyhow, across our pasture, there was a slight drop in elevation. Although the drop was perhaps only a foot or so, that area was known as "the falls" because the water flowed more quickly there, and there were rocks around which the water flowed.

The depth of Little River in most places would perhaps reach the waist of an average ten-year-old in most places, but there were a few places where someone could actually swim.

The falls wasn't one of those places. In order to swim at the falls, we would have to dam it up, which was something that three ten-year-olds could accomplish in about an hour, and which one could do in a few hours. The banks were high enough on the upstream side to contain enough water to swim in, so we would sometimes dam it up for an afternoon of swimming. If we left it that way, dad wouldn't be happy about it.

This was the UP of Michigan, and the 1950s, so I was going to the falls by myself when I was five years old, probably. The falls was a place where I would often go alone to play with my toy soldiers. Rearranging the rocks in the creek, it was possible to stage all sorts of naval battles. When I didn't have an actual toy boat, they could be made from popsicle sticks.

My older brother had made a rather intricate battleship our of toothpicks, which he had on display. My cousins and I used to stage a naval battle down by the fall, and the fortunes of war didn't look kindly upon it, especially when they involved firecrackers. I put it back on his shelf when we were done but it didn't go unnoticed.

I can't really remember what the fun was in playing with toy soldiers by myself but I know that I spent a fair amount of time doing that when I was young, and probably a lot of boys did. As I remember, staging the battle scenes was the fun part. The rest was just knocking them over so that I could stage another battle scene. But at the falls, we could have live action, thanks to the flow of water.

We built a submarine out of an old barrel one day. The idea of it was to have enough flotation pieces in it to keep it from sinking to the bottom but enough weight to keep it from floating on top, with breathing supplied through a tube. We dammed up the falls in order to test it out and, while I can't say that it was a great success, it didn't sink to the bottom immediately. I got yelled at because we left it in the creek when we were done.

After my father died, my stepmother gave me the property, so I owned the falls for a few years. But, my second-oldest brother wanted to build a home where the family dump used to be, downstream from the falls, so I gave it to him. Now, the falls is in a pine woods, as is the whole pasture.

 

Little River (the creek) crossed the road that I lived on (Bethel Church Road) twice. A mile and a half west of us, where a couple of my uncles and aunts (Newlins) lived, they had a swimming hole where it crossed the road there. The Newlins had a lot of kids but they were all either a couple of years older or a couple of years younger than me, so I never hung out with them, so I have never swum in that swimming hole.

There were places where you could jump across the creek without getting wet. At the falls, at most times of the year, we could walk across it on the rocks without getting wet, depending on how we had the rocks arranged.

The creek crossed the Big Hills Road about halfway between the Bethel Church Road and Stanley's Road, but there was a lot of brush there, and snakes, so no one swam there. We did build a shack on stilts along the creek there, which was still standing when I was in my thirties, though.

Then the creek went behind my cousin, Calvin's house, but I don't think anyone ever played in the creek there. Maybe Calvin did, but I don't think I was ever there. Then it made its way north of our house, where we had the falls.

Continuing on, it crosses the Gravel Road just east of the falls, but people had a habit of throwing bottles into the creek there, apparently, because it was known for broken glass. I cut myself a couple of times there. That was known as the Wooden Bridge, long after it has been replaced by a culvert.

From there, the creek wound south, crossing the Bethel Church Road again, east of our house. There, the water was deeper, even over our heads. The brush was cleared away from the banks and, at some point, someone had even brought in some beach sand. That was the Cement Bridge. There were snakes there too, but not so many of them, and once we had splashed around for a while, they all vacated the area. From the Cement Bridge and the swimming area, it flowed into an area where we would find snapping turtles.

From there, the creek enters the woods and winds all over the place, passing through a farm owned by my Uncle Erling's brother, which is close to due south from our house. There was a beaver dam there. We played there sometimes, but mostly with my cousin, Jerry, whose dad was Erling.

My friends were all cousins. Calvin lived across the field from me, his house and mine being the only ones on that side of the road between the Big Hills Road the Gravel Road. Robert lived on the corner of Stanley's Road and the Gravel Road. Crossing the falls, and into the woods, was a shortcut to his house. His father was Stanley. Jerry lived further away, south on the Big Hills Road, then west toward US Highway 41, on Erling's Road.

Except for US Highway 41 and the Bethel Church Road, none of these were the actual names for the roads, and the Bethel Church Road was known by a number on maps, although there was a sign saying Bethel Church Road.

 

The Falls was also where we had to walk to every winter morning in order to break a hole in the ice for the horses to drink from. I wasn't the only one with the job but I had to take my turn. The trick was to let the horses out of the barn first and let them break a path to the creek. Otherwise, crossing about five acres of land in deep snow, carrying an ax, wasn't the best way to start out the day. On really cold days, the horses weren't so interested in breaking the way, so that had to be done. Another trick was to be the last one out of bed so that someone else will have done that already, given that we didn't have assigned days or anything. Sometimes dad did it before leaving for work.

 

That's what reminiscing is all about. Given that I graduated from high school fifty years ago, we're talking about sixty years ago, give or take a few. As for the ice, the horses would keep it broken throughout the day. Overnight it would freeze, but the spot that had been broken the day before would be thinner than the rest of the ice. It did take some swings of an ax though.

I was home (sort of) about ten years ago, but my dad's house belongs to someone else now, although my brother has the fifteen acres of the pasture that I gave to him, and built his house there. The last time I was actually home was before my dad died, in the early 1980s. I took my son with me and showed him several of the places we used to hang out in. No one swims in the creek anymore, so that was all grown over. I did find the shack we had built on stilts. It survived, although we never spent even a single night in it before the whole area flooded by the time we had the walls up.

I remember one winter when Lake Michigan froze all the way across, closing the shipping lanes. There was a highway of traffic cutting across the lake to the Lower Peninsula, cutting several hours off the trip.

 

My brother (who lives there) posted a picture of the Gravel Road, which is still gravel. Little River is flooding. To the left was the eastern edge of our property, and The Falls was about a quarter mile (or less) in. Since they replaced the bridge with a culvert, you can't even tell where the road cross the creek.