Swimming Hole Story

Maine, despite recent troubling encroachments by McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts, still looks and feels pretty much the way it did when I first landed there as an 11-year-old sleepaway camper, and its unspoiled waters and cheap lobsters have been drawing me back for more than half the summers of my life.

On the road to the rental cabin, we'd pass foxes, wild turkeys, deer, and a barn selling fresh eggs by the honor system (leave $3.50 in a can); on the lake we saw loons, cormorants, and a bald eagle. The local county fair, despite the increasingly generic greasy food stalls and carny rides, still has 4H quilt and produce displays, smash-up derby, and poultry and livestock barns filled with glorious ribbon-worthy specimens like this ostrichy rooster [right].

But this summer's quintessential Maine experience happened at the local swimming hole,