Of course the Adults weren't helping much in telling us those awful stories about how no one had ever found the bottom of the Poolpoint; How there were catfish in there as big as cars, and weird-looking huge salamanders they called "grampus" which some unlucky fisherman would sometimes catch and bring slowly to the top; excited because he thought he'd hooked a cat, but upon viewing his catch would either be repulsed or terrified. And, the very worst; How, if you fell off the Poolpoint Bridge, because of the height, if you hit the water flat and not in a dive, the impact would kill you because it would shatter every bone in your body. Not sure if that ever happened but the way my Dad explained it sure seemed logical. Adults! Did they tell such stories to keep us from swimming in the Poolpoint? Were these their fears manifesting over into the children?
The mysterious Poolpoint: Supposedly formed millons of years ago by a whirlpool and no diver had ever reached the actual bottom. It was surrounded in folk-lore and mystery and all the stories lent it that air of being a mystical, haunting place. in my child-like imagination I felt that the bridge spanning over it was an actual trap set by the Poolpoint, making it look like an innocent crossing; to lure unsuspecting victims in the hope that they would fall into its yawning watery mouth! And if that didn't work, there was the dark tunnel on the other side, (another mouth?): With it's wonderful echos to lure innocent children in, in the hopes that they would fall and break their legs on the iron rails, to lie there, in pain, helpless and terrified when they felt those first vibrations of a train coming!
That bridge and the Poolpoint was my worst fear. Worse than the boogie man under my bed or evil aliens with huge eyes and tentacles invading the Flattwoods. It was real and it was there and we had to cross it every morning to get to school; no matter if we feared it or not! But, here is the thing. Not only did I and my siblings cross it every morning, and not only did we stop at the center and look down at the water far, far below, but we spit on it! Yes, we spit on it! Spitting is a grand act of defiance in a child. It's the ultimate of insults. You ask a child and he'll tell you. Actually, this is carried over into adulthood. Isn't the hawk- and-spit still one of the most insulting things someone can do to you?
So we spit off the Poolpoint Bridge. I'm not sure how the ritual actually got started, but start it did and Mom never said a word about it. She'd just watch us with that strange smile. An other-worldly smile. An expression of motherly-knowing that I later came to view as a Mona Lisa smile. Mom normally viewed any spitting as a nasty habit, but she knew this was quiet different. She knew we needed to do this. Look our worst fear right in the eye and not only see it, and feel it, but defy it. Defy it and take away its power! And in her smile was pride! Pride for her courageous children. The bravest people to walk the face of the planet. Innocent of the adult fears that would come later and become like chains to hold us down. The limitations that are cast upon us when we finally come to understand just how evil we can be and just how terribly we can hurt each other. So we lock ourselves inside, afraid to explore more or learn further. We lose the Magic. We lose that almost instinctual belief that there is this incredible awesome, magical, superman-like deity looking out for us. We get hurt, and not just physically but spiritually, and as we withdraw inside ourselves we push out all that wonderful faith we had as a child. The Magic! And with the leaving of the magic comes the closing of that fantasy plane and we tell ourselves that none of it was real. Just childhood imagination and we look back and laugh on it. But deep down we really want to cry. For with it went our courage.
