Jackman Family Reunions at Salem Pond 

One of my earliest and best memories is of extended Jackman family reunions every summer at Salem Pond, a lovely body of water adjacent to the (then) small community of Salem, Utah, nestled neatly between Spanish Fork and Payson. 

When my parents lived in Spanish Fork they were regular customers of a rural grocery store there known simply as Sam's.  They knew every employee there, including the owner, on a first name basis. I remember them going to the meat counter to have the butcher, a small weathered man who went by the nickname Short, cut their meat to order.  They had a whole section of "penny candy", and we each were usually able to get our own small bag with a few treats in it.  Sometimes we could also talk my folks into a nickle hand-dipped ice cream cone from a chest cooler that had four five-gallon tubs of ice cream.  The selection wasn't Coldstone or even Baskin-Robbins, but we thought it was amazing to have that many choices.  Among the frequent flavors were chocolate, Neapolitan, strawberry, banana nut, butter pecan, and, of course, vanilla.  They also had a separate freezer case with other frozen treats, and this is where I became acquainted with Sidewalk Sundaes and Dreamsicles...but I digress

As I was saying, the reunions were every summer and drew numerous adults, teens, and children, sometimes from amazing distances.  It lasted two days, Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday there were many contests, always a talent show/entertainment program, and so much good food as you kind of marauded from table to table filling your plate with whatever looked good.  I kind of suspect this is the place the Yogi Bear cartoon iea was hatched.  They also had a wonderful set of tire swings where it seemed like you could swing so high you could touch the treetops.

Saturdays were for fun, Sundays were more spiritual.  A Sacrament Meeting was held (I assume, but don't know, it was authorized by local authorities) where there were always enough Aaronic Priesthood bearers to prepare, bless, and pass the Sacrament.  After that, the adults had a business meeting where they discussed genealogy and probably planned the next year's reunion, that type of stuff. The kids were turned loose during this time to kind of fend for themselves.  It was assumed the olders would keep track of the youngers, especially keeping them from dangerous spots.

My mother knew me pretty well, and my attraction to water.  There were a series of three small ponds that held small fish, starting at the top of a hill, and kind of forming a chain down the hillside, connected by a series of small streams, the last of which emptied eventually into Salem Pond, and I guess I had a reputation for getting myself all wet in one or another of them every year.

This particular year ( I think I was four at the time) she had come well prepared with two changes of clothes.  The first time I got wet, she patiently changed me into one of the dry sets, with a warning not to get wet again.  That lasted for maybe ten minutes before I was up getting wet again (what good is water if you can't get wet?)  This time she not-so-patiently changed me into my last set of dry clothes, with a warning that sounded more like a threat of the consequences if I got this last set of clothes wet.

I am not certain how long that warning lasted, but I know it was not to the end of the business meeting.  That meeting was interrupted by what started as a twitter of laughter that grew until it drowned out the speaker, as more and more folks' attention was redirected to the lowest pond, where I was playing happily, as naked as a jaybird, ,in the middle of the pond...my clothes folded neatly on the shore, I having precisely obeyed her order.

I don't know what my mother's initial reaction was...frustration, embarrassment, or any other of a number of reasonable responses...but she got over it soon enough to tell the story on me for many of my growing up years, and into my adulthood.