Owasso

Last night I went swimming at Lake Owasso Beach.  My niece (smartly) decided to have her family birthday party there. I was surprised to find plenty of parking on a hot and humid Friday evening.  We sat in the shade, talked, ate, and joked.  All the kids were swimming. I asked the adults, "You going in?"  All declined.  I may be old enough to be considered an adult but I cannot pass up swimming in Lake Owasso on a hot summer night when I had my swim suit with me.  OMG the water was wonderful.  There was no hesitation in getting wet because the lake was as warm as bath water.  The beach sand is fine.  The lake bottom wasn't too weedy.  The waves from the jet ski's were just as fun as the waves from the boats when I was a kid. I found it strange to be back on this beach again.  As a kid we rode our bikes here after lunch many times a week.  Mom said we had to wait an hour after the bike ride before swimming so we wouldn't get a cramp and drown.  I don't know why but I did as I was told.  I sat, hot and sweaty, on a towel on the hot beach in the full sun, and waited for an hour before diving into the water.  This seems incredible to me now. Back then we had lifeguards sitting on tall white chairs who would whistle at the kids who did something wrong.  We had a swimming dock way out for the bigger kids who could swim that far.  I swam out there once.  I never went back because when I jumped off the swimming dock to head back to shore, I went so far down I nearly panicked underwater.  Many times we came back to the beach in the evening.  My father would drive all of us to the beach to swim while he read the paper.  Then 5 or 6 kids with wet suits, wet towels, and sandy feet would climb back into the station wagon and go home argueing about who would take a shower first.  Can you imagine the mess we made in his car?  Thinking back, it was really nice of him to do that as often as he did.