It rarely got scorching hot in Portland when I was growing up, but occasionally it reached 100 degrees F.(37.7C for my readers in the rest of the world.) In Hartford right now we are in the middle(I hope)of a seven day heat wave. It is again about 100 degrees. At my age, I am content to sit in front of a window air conditioner catching up on my posts and reading those of my on-line friends.

But when I was a kid I loved getting wet just as much as the kids at my daughter’s party Saturday. We would run through the sprinkler most of the time to cool off. Sometimes my mom would take us to a city swimming pool. But on especially hot weekend days, my father would gather air mattresses and the four of us and head south for about an hour.

The destination was known to us as Bear Creek. That was not its real name, our father told us. He didn’t want people to know about this exquisite swimming spot he had found, so he gave it a pseudonym. Here we went over a series of little falls then climbed out and walked back up to do it again. I am captured in this photo as I come down to the last deep pool on the creek. While many times my father was angry and resentful of his responsibilities, when he got us to Bear Creek he relaxed. On rare hot summer afternoons we all joyfully swam.

I’d send you there, but I can’t tell you how to find it. I don’t know its real name to this day!