Rocky Falls
by Mary Brunini McArdle
I can't remember if "Rocky Falls" was the name of the place or not. Maybe my mother made up the name, or maybe she got it from the country people who ran the grocery store nearby. I can't even remember how she found such a place, unless she and her brothers were looking for blackberries. It wasn't unusual for my mother and her brothers to go far from home in their search for blackberries or dewberries, as well as wild plums, walnuts, pomegranates, and pecans. As for asking her, it's too late; I am the older generation now, and my parents have been gone for years.
We lived in a river city in Mississippi, and the expeditions to Rocky Falls must have begun in the early fifties. Anybody in the family was welcome to go — anybody who had the patience to wait on my mother to get a picnic ready. Once we got to Rocky Falls we would stay until near dark.
Usually our group was made up of my distant cousin and best friend Nell, my mother, my uncle Billy, my cousin Tad, my younger brother and sister, and assorted nieces and nephews.
"When are we leaving? It's nearly ten," one or the other of my siblings would complain. We were always ready early, hoping that somehow there would be a basic personality change, and my mother would surprise us. It never happened. She insisted she was going as fast as she could, but it was often eleven before the drive of an hour began. Which was worth it, because my mother prepared an outstanding picnic. So we packed the car with food and ice chests and towels and swimming suits, and, after stopping at the country store for bottled drinks, meandered through a series of dirt roads until we came to a hollow enclosed by a wall of vegetation. There was no kudzu there, which was remarkable. Some law of nature had forbidden the intrusion of kudzu at Rocky Falls even in mid-July.
We parked and unloaded the car. Then we struggled through the dense barrier of bushes and vines and slid down a muddy embankment to a narrow sandy beach, odd for Central Mississippi! But even more astonishing was the terrain the beach bordered. Here was our own secret cluster of high rocks and miniature waterfalls. The water had dug out ravines so that we could swim through curved streams with rugged cliffs above us. Hanging precariously every few feet were freshwater mussels and other fascinating animals.
We could run about on the upper rocks and peer down at the holes made by the numerous waterfalls. The ravines opened into a shallow pool favored by the younger children. The water came from a freshwater spring above and was clear and clean. We forgot how hungry we were until we had played and swam to our heart's content. Earlier we had changed into our swimsuits behind trees before tackling the steep slope leading down to the rocks. The slope required patience to descend, but was the only way to reach the beach and rock formations.
At last we feasted on sandwiches and chips and pickles and olives and Delaware Punch and watermelon. Nothing tasted better than a picnic at Rocky Falls, the heat of the summer held at bay by the trees and bushes and rocks and water. Uncle Billy took home movies in the afternoon.
We couldn't stay overnight — we had no camping gear in those days, and the notion didn't even occur to us. These day trips were always anticipated and never forgotten.
We never saw another soul at Rocky Falls — it remained Our family's throughout our childhood. Until the day —
Until the day years later when we arrived with our load of food, swimsuits, and cameras to find a wire fence with a "posted" sign. Somebody owned the property, and had decided to protect it. We never found out who the owners were. How could we? No one but us even knew about Rocky Falls. The people at the grocery store shrugged when we asked, their faces stony and impenetrable. There was nothing we could do but go back home.
So a phase of our lives ended without warning, but I wouldn't have traded all the travel and hotels and cruise ships in the world for one day at Rocky Falls. Is it still there, that secret treasure in the quiet Mississippi woods? I hope so, because it was the most beautiful natural area I have ever enjoyed.
I wonder — that day we were barred entry to Rocky Falls — did we rummage in the ice chest and potato chips on the trip home? Or eat the still intact and delicious lunch when we got there? That memory is a total blank. Perhaps we didn't have the heart or the appetite.
Sometimes I dream I'm swimming in cold water with boulders above me covered with moss and mussels and freshwater crabs. Friendly things — I swim with no fear and nothing to anticipate but good food and a wonderful night's sleep after hours of fun in fresh air and unaltered surroundings.
I wish I could see those surroundings again. I wish I could feel the sand of that unlikely beach and the even more unlikely rocks under my feet and hear the water rushing through the cavernous formations down to our private swimming pool in that secluded hollow. I wish I could taste the pimento cheese sandwiches and Delaware Punch and clean up watermelon rinds and climb the muddy slope and find my way through the bushes to the car, full and happy and satisfied. And return home with the people I loved the most.
Quickly, before the film fades, one last look at the smiling faces captured on old-fashioned home movies--swimsuit-clad children balancing on the edge of strange geological formations, content to be sandy and wet and watermelon-stained until the last bit of sunlight could be squeezed out of the summer day.
Mary Brunini McArdle has published extensively in small journals and has won numerous prizes in short plays, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Recently she has been publishing mainly online in such magazines as COMBAT MAGAZINE, BEWILDERING STORIES, THE TRUTH MAGAZINE, APHELION, and others. Her work experience has been varied; her degree is in History and English. She has graduate or continuing education in several fields, including Military Strategy, History, English, and Natural Science.