Page 53 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

RIDING A MULE TO THE LEIGHTON MARKHAM
WASH-HOLE

From the time I was about 12 years old until I graduated from high school, starting in late April of each
year and extending on into August, a bunch of us boys, mostly cousins to each other, would get on our
horses and mules and ride over to a nice little hole of water in Olustee Creek, near where A.B. and Roy
Markham lived, and go swimming on Sunday afternoons. I rode a mule, while some of the other boys
had horses, because my daddy only used mules to pull the farm equipment, because mules were better
suited to heavy duty work than horses.

I had no saddle, but a sack thrown across the back of the old mule was good enough for me.

The reason that I personally did not go to the wash-hole in the last part of the summer was because each
year when the Tobacco Warehouses opened 1 would be employed at the Tobacco Warehouses, and this
was a 7 day a week job, without any days off, and I always worked the night shift from 7 PM, all night,
to 7AM. That cut out my trips to the wash-hole during most of July and most of August.

This wash-hole was located about a quarter of a mile north of where Mr. Leighton Markham lived, and
he had a house full of boys, namely Hubert (whom we all called “Toddy”, and who later married my
first cousin Shirley Dicks), Ralph (always called by the rest of as “Joe”, for some unknown reason) Jim
Markham, who had two thumbs on one hand, and A.B., who later married my distant cousin Margie
Kerce, Pink Kerce’s daughter, and Roy Markham, who at that time was the baby of the bunch, and
whom everybody knew as “Bud”.

Mr. & Mrs. Markham had one daughter, who came along after Bud, and then another boy who was at
the time we were going to the wash-hole too small to go with us. I do not even recall what his real name
was but everybody called him “Son”.

Louise has for many years been the wife of Kenneth Witt, and the only living brothers out of that bunch
of boys is A.B. and Bud. Sometimes we get together and talk about those old days and those were some
good memories, because a lot of us were related, but I don’t believe anybody in the bunch was related to
the Markham boys. We did not care, since it was their wash-hole, and they were happy to let us go
swimming there. I can recall that my cousin Rudolph Pearce was present in those swimming parties on
many occasions.

For the past many, many years, Rose Creek has not run enough to keep that old wash-hole full, as that
Creek has almost disappeared. Our Water Table in North Central Florida is fast disappearing on us and I
do not know if I could even find the Leighton Markham wash-hole today. However, that does not spoil
my memories of it.

Incidentally, none of us boys even knew what a swimming suit was. And we certainly were not going to
anger our mothers by coming home with our clothes all wet so when we went swimming it was probably
a sight to behold.

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