When I was young, my father always took my mom and my brothers and me fishing. I don’t know if I ever liked fishing. It was something the family just did, whether any of us liked it or not. He loved it, though, and it was cheap entertainment, so that’s most likely why we did it.
My dad had a friend, Bob, who owned some acreage on the outskirts of Pleasanton, Kansas. Bob subsequently built a farm there. But, before he did, there was a mysterious, dark, primordial pond, concealed in a slough surrounded with trees. Aside from accessing the pond from the dam, the rest of the pond was difficult to get close to the shore because of the dense, scrubby vegetation typical of Ozark woodlands.
The pond had all manner of creatures, including, turtles, bullfrogs and snakes- both poisonous and non-poisonous. Plus, because it was hidden away, difficult to get to, and hardly anybody knew about it, the pond had huge fish. For a while, a pouty-faced doll head floated near the western shore. I’d wonder to whom it belonged and why it ended up there. Oh, and tucked away in the shallows was the corpse of a 1923 Ford Model T sadly rotting away. This pond was old.
The pond became known as the Hog Pen Pond due to its upstream proximity to a hog pen that Bob later built on his farm. We would still fish it when the family visited Bob’s family, but most everyone preferred fishing the bigger pond Bob had built. Not me. I would often visit the Hog Pen Pond every chance I could. Most of the time I did, I would be alone. I would just sit there and look at it and marvel at its ancient creepiness and let my imagination go.
It’s been almost 30 years since I visited the farm. Bob and his wife passed away and I have no idea who owns the farm now. I found where it used to be on Google Earth, but trees and other vegetation, erosion and silt have since erased the pond for good. It is nothing more than a depression in the woods. I still dream about the pond, though.
I thought about the pond as I was making this painting.
I was walking with my son as I was about halfway done with this painting. He must have been about 6 the last time we went down to Bob’s. Without telling him about the painting or anything about Bob’s farm, out of the clear blue, he asked me, “Do you remember the Hog Pen Pond?”
Clearly, it had made an impression on him, too. I looked at the goosebumps forming on my arm.
