Life Along the Creek

Life Along the Creek. . , Summertime Freedom , Juanita Herff Chipman is a great-great-granddaughter of one of the town’s early champions, Dr. Ferdinand Herff. She tells of her childhood in the 1930s., “Mother gave us the freedom to be ourselves. She allowed us to get dirty, to bathe only when we swam in the pool, which was usually twice every day... The Cibolo Creek, with its maidenhair fern banks, huge cypress trees, falls and shadows, and deep, dark, rocky pools, was another favorite place. We would swim or fish in the beautiful but sometimes slimy creek, wading through clinging waterweeds, reminding us of fuzzy cattails., There, at night, we would go frog gigging with Augie in a flat green kayak, which our father and Augie had made. We would carry a lantern and listen for the boorok, boorok, boorok sounds of the papa frogs. The light from the lantern would mesmerize the frogs long enough for one of us to spear the frog with the satanic-looking gig.” , – Juanita Herff Chipman, Captions: , Frog Gig , Rowing in the Canoe , Just Floating in the River , Summer Afternoon , Making Sandwiches for Picnic Lunch Beside Cibolo Creek, 1938 , Picnic Along the Cibolo Creek, 1938