Though this Fourth of July is comaparably mild (and rainy) here in Southern Illinois, it’s an appropriate time to add my “keeping cool” recollections to those begun by Charlie, [dan] , and Ryan.  The Fourth typically marked the beginning of sweltering weather that would continue through early September.  By that point in the summer we had been relying on our go-to cool down plan for well over a month: swimming in the Lake of Egypt.

My childhood neighborhood, pictured awkwardly at right courtesy of Google Maps, was on a peninsula that thrust itself out into the lake.  Once you turned onto our road (not known as “Clifty Heights Drive” back then, by the way), the only ways out were to turn around or swim.

Every house had a backyard that ended with the  lake, so every summer morning presented only one decision: Whose dock would be home base for our more or less day-long  swim?

Our house was on the west side of the neighborood, thus facing a much more open section of the lake.  This meant we would get some boat traffic and consequent wave action if we swam there.

Much more frequently, though, we opted for a friend’s house on the east side, where there was little boat traffic and, significantly, her family’s dock was long and didn’t have side rails, making it much more effective for leaping in.

If we needed a break from bathing with seaweed and blue gill, we had another cool-off technique that seems ridiculous now, but I can’t recall if we realized it then.  After stealing enough loose change from around the house to make the trip worthwhile, we’d hop on our bikes and ride the mile or so through the heat to the closest seat of commerce in the area: the local bait shop.

In addition to live bait, Dempsey’s served up an array of cold soda and candy.  We’d make our purchase and return to the gravel parking lot to chug a sugary drink and down a package of Runts.  Hopping back our bikes and making the trek back home invariably left us hotter and sweatier than we’d started.

We  made the trips in our swimsuits, though, and the time it took to get from the road to the dock and back into the lake was short.