all in a fifty-gallon drum

As I sat out on my deck today, I was thinking about how great it would be if we had a swimming pool so that Balin could have something fun to do once the summer heat gets here...my mind wandered around ideas of what we could do without a pool, perhaps a sprinkler toy like last year...for that was fun....then my thoughts were immediately taken back to that old 50-gallon drum. Oh, that rusty, ol' 50-gallon drum.... In my memories, that thing was huge!!


My family didn't have a swimming pool growing up, well...I take that back. We did, but it was over at the farm and some days we weren't able to make the trip over there. So, on those very days...my sisters and I would set that drum up, drop the water hose down into it, and viola...we had our pool. I remember that all four of us would fit into this thing...all at once. We'd even get daring and place it under a tree so that we could climb up the tree and fall into the barrel of water like some diving acrobatic circus show. We'd each take a turn going up the tree and plunging down into the brown basin without a care in the world!! My, what fun!!

Well, the fun didn't end with water...we'd turn it on it's side, throw a blanket over the top and it instantly became a playhouse. Sometimes we'd even throw some sticks in there and make a bonfire to roast marshmallows (no worries, that was with parental supervision). But other than our make-shift swimming pool and bonfires...the one memory that stands out the most is how we'd create a ride that was such a thrill...

We would roll the 50-gallon drum over to our "favorite hill" (as mentioned in "do you remember?" ). We did EVERYTHING on this hill.... which was on the front side of our yard. The base of the hill was lined with a barbed wire fence and in one steep swoop, the grassy knoll met the edge of our garden. At this very place, my sisters and I would place pillows inside the drum, then strategically position ourselves inside as well...bracing our hands and feet against the walls of the drum. 'One, two, three!!'...WHOOSH! BUMPITY-BUMP! DOWN WE'D GO!...rocking and rolling all the way...only to be stopped by the fence wire that swayed with the impact of screaming girls inside that metal tube. On occasion, one of us would actually try to run on the top of it...with failure, but fun all the same.

During the winter months, I can remember that drum, standing at the edge of the driveway looking gloomy and bored as it contained items to be taken to the junk yard...and like it was waiting for summer to return with the dare-devils that embraced it's unlikely charm.