Growing up on a farm in rural America, well, I doubt a childhood gets much better than that. I grew up on Rolling Shoals Farm ... the hills & valleys of the Black River in southern Missouri. My dad was a farmer - and in the summer ... so were my two brothers and I. But it wasn't work ... my dad made work fun. Farm work was driving tractors, riding wagons of corn in from the field, horseback rides, a cattle drive. My mother took care of us ... fed us well plus kool-aid once a day, sewed everything I ever wore (blessed are only daughters of sewing mothers) and when my dad was combining through dinnertime, Mom would fix a picnic to take out to the field, and we'd look for arrowheads and chase baby rabbits to make them our pets.

Most days, at 5 o'clock quittin' time ... we'd all head to the river. Our soultime. My dad drilled holes in the rock ledge and mounted a diving board. He strung a cable from the elm tree across to the rock cliff and we dangled from a zip line careening down into the water. He would make us practice the scoot, the steamboat and the windmill. Cane poles were for diving practice ... in an effort to get us to jump higher and arch prettier, but I never mastered the jackknife like my dad.

A hundred yards downstream ... Rolling Shoals. The river narrows and as the swifter current passes over a rock shelf and meets a strong underwater back current, there's a leap of white water and a series of whirlpools. We didn't go often ...  it was a special surprise. My dad could brace himself on the rock ledge, lower himself down flat, until the water flowed over his head creating a waterfall over his face where he could stay for minutes -- eventually we figured out - he could still breathe! And talk! You can't hold on forever, the current pushes you on ... and you dip into the whirlpools where you might panic for a moment, but it soon pushes you back up into air.  Don't kick the rocks as you float back upstream. Take a deep breath and sink to the bottom and let the back current carry you along the ledge until you hit the whirlpool washing machine that thrashes you around ... and pops you back up. Scarring your feet on the walk back to the beach, we'd roast hotdogs and marshmallows -- my mom took care of every detail -from the tablecloth to the candles.