Our family moved to Tuskahoma in 1964, a few months before my 6th Birthday. Tuskahoma is a small community lying on the north bank of the Kiamichi River in northern Pushmataha County.
Now I must jump forward about 25 years to begin my story.
We lived in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow and my daughter was about 14 years old. A news story came on about some bad flooding somewhere, and was reporting of a school bus that had driven into rushing waters and was overturned. If I recall correctly, 7 teenage students and the driver were forced into the water. My memory is not entirely clear, but I think the driver and two students managed to get out on their own. Three had managed to get to a small tree and the other two had found something out in the middle of the stream. All were clinging desperately for their lives while news crews were filming rescue operations. All were rescued safely, thank god. While this is going on, my daughter is watching intently, fearing the worst. At some point, I let out a small laugh and smiled. My daughter immediately berated me for my thoughtlessness.
So I explained about when I was a boy growing up on the Kiamichi River. Every spring while the river was still full from the rains, we would go up river and swim with the current down the river looking for good swimming holes. The river always changed a little from season to season and would gouge out a new swimming hole somewhere. We had to find them quick because they wouldn’t last but 2-3 weeks at most before the water level dropped.
But this is what I was laughing about. Sometimes when we would get a really strong storm system come through, and the river level rose and really got to running strong, we would grab anything that would float. Car and truck inner tubes were the best, but air up mattresses worked to. We would jump into that churning Kiamichi River and ride it as far as we could. I was laughing because it’s amazing that I survived my childhood at all.