Cow Pond Revival

In the South we have whats called a River Revival. If you've not been washed in the mud of the Mississippi then you better start asking for someone to bless your little heart.

On a summer visit to Palmyra, Illinois I experienced a Cow Pond Revival for the first time. It wasn't exactly what you call intentional as it was more than a stroke to my ego and pride.

I had been hanging out with a bunch of cocky Yankee guys and some yuppie women. The guys I was well acquainted with knew good and well I was nothing like the yuppie women they invited to tag along with us to a fishing trip to a cow pond.

Now this wasn't just any cow pond, it was fully stocked with bass, just for fishing.

So here we are fishing when some guy shows up with a jet ski... I'm standing here thinking, “You've got to be kidding me...”

No shame whatsoever this guy launches his jet ski into the pond and sets off.... Yeah we didn't catch anymore fish after that (Not like we were catching many to begin with....) Either way violent waves were crashing on the bank of the pond. Everyone at this point is just drinking beer and watching this idiot, whom I like to call Cow Pond Surfer, fly around a cow pond barely the size of an acre.

That is until I recognized what the above mentioned idiot was about to do.... I'd seen enough America's Funniest Videos to know that his frantic race past us and his body language screaming he's about to cut left and slam us with a tidal wave of water on shore.

I had an array of trucks to jump in, I picked the lifted Duramax, scrambled in and crouched down hoping the height would keep me from getting soaked.. Before anyone could even ask what in the Sam Hell I was doing, WHOOOOOOSHHHHH!!!! They were soaked! The two guys standing on the edge of the embankment lost their beers the wave rose so high.

I'm laughing my butt off at this point with all of these teary, mascara streaking women complaining about their cute little outfits being soaked. Of course the guys didn't care, they opened another beer and they were good to go.

Some girl standing near me asked why I wasn't soaked. I just simply replied,” Right place at the right time.” Now with me being the only dry person in our little fishing party, my flag was flying high... 

Don't ask why but it was.

As Karma would have it in favor of our soaked friends, all of the furious waves in the cow pond stirred up every bit of weed, trash and algae imaginable and clogged Cow Pond Surfer's jet ski motor. He had to paddle his way back to shore with his flip flops... Pretty entertaining if you ask me... He was blonde to begin with....(No offense to any blondes out there, coincidence maybe?)

With the sun setting everyone had laid down their poles for good and was pretty much either drinking beer or helping Cow Pond Surfer unclog his jet ski. That is until one guy had just a bit too much. His buddy decided this would be a good time to push him into the pond. Except for he underestimated him and both tumbled into the gross gooey cow pond. They wrestled around and then stopped and started trying to get everyone to jump in.

The three girls besides me were still pissed from earlier, they just sat on a tailgate and scoffed. The guys looked at me and taunted me... Normally taunting doesn't work but it did this time. I was a Southerner on Yankee soil, of course I felt like I had to prove myself.

They kept on but the moment they called me a “yuppie girl” I snapped. I jumped over the side of the Duramax I had been chilling in and started stripping down to what I could. Now that I look back... That's probably what they wanted was for all us girls to strip down butt naked. However, I stopped before I got completely naked.

Off came my shoes, socks, insulin pump and yoga pants. I was left standing in a tank top and boy shorts. I backed up and said, “Yuppie huh? Any girl left on this bank is a yuppie!”

I took off at a dead run. In mid run, I felt the biggest rush of excitement. What I was doing wasn't against the law, it was stupid, senseless and quite frankly pointless, but after the most depressing, regretful three years of my life I promised myself that I'd start living every day like my last.....and that's exactly what I did. I reached the highest part of the overhang on the embankment and gracefully jumped off , tucking up my legs into the “cannon ball” position and landed in the water making more symbolic waves with myself mentally than my 110 pound body could make physically..

I plunged down into the warm depths of the algae infested cow pond and resurfaced feeling like I had been “down to the river to pray”, washing away all of my regret.

I felt revived, renewed, refreshed! Adrenaline racing through my body as I swam to ground I could stand on.

I put my feet down and sank ankle deep into a muddy bottom. The cold mud squishing between my toes sent electricity of accomplishment through my body.

The other three guys, Cow Pond Surfer included couldn't be shown up by a little ole southern girl. 

They stripped down to boxers and plunged in.

We all wrestled like a bunch of idiots (good thing there weren't any leeches in there!) Anyone that knows me, knows I can play with the boys, I'm a tom boy at best. Wrestling around, snatching each others beers, pushing each other under. We were swimming in that pond well into dark time. I was baptized time and again with every dunk under water I received, drowning every last bit of my haunting past, vindicating every single bit of my soul.

I realized this was the wildest thing I had ever done, as I was one of the typical “good girls” that stayed in and stayed to myself and focused on school and work. I'll never forget it...

Yeah, I know, I'm a crazy, young and dumb 20 year old. But you know what? Let me know how you feel when you break free from your own prison and wash away your transgressions in a cow pond 300 miles away from home.