"I'd better go watch and make sure they don't drown each other," I said. Jennifer was already running with some of the other girls her age, a pack of boys racing past them with giggles and comments about how slow girls were. The girls retaliated by all sticking out their tongues and kept jogging along in an orderly and proper manner.

It was the annual family reunion out at grandad's farm. There were kids and dogs running all over the place, bees dancing around the coolers full of food and chatter going on about what everyone was up to and memories of nostalgically well spent childhoods. Must have been fifty people all told. With a few thousand acres to spread out on there was no concept of it being crowded. But the kids got bored with the adults' goings on, then someone yelled 'swimming hole' and it set off a stampede towards the woods and the trail. I smiled when I thought of the times I'd spent out there. My first rope swing, now that's a memory. Then someone mentioned having to watch them and I volunteered. I was tired of listening to the family history that had died a good and rightful death come alive anyway.

Now the woods brought back the good memories, all the times dad would bring us out to the farm to 'visit our roots', generally it was fun but as a kid hearing all about yesteryear and how much better it was, I didn't care. I just wanted to play and eat grandma's pies after dinner. Once before dinner but that's another story. Probably the best times were out at the swimming hole with the rest of the kids, though we used the rest of the woods for all kinds of fun and games. I passed the spot where Jeff and Tom set a trap for wolves, not getting any of course, but it was fun imagining, then the tree where Jeff had carved his initials and they were still there, though quite faded after twenty years, and a pile of sticks where we built a fort and held off companies of enemy soldiers. All the good stuff of growing up lived here in the woods.

When I got close to the small lake I could hear yells and squeals of happy kids, then a loud splash and more yells. I held back just where the trail turned and peeked around the tree. Sure enough, they discovered skinny dipping was even more fun than regular swimming and there were nearly a dozen naked swimmers. One of the boys had hold of the rope, took a run and arced up above the water displaying everything he had. When he let go, he missed and landed on his side with that special sound of flesh slapping water too hard. There were guffaws and when he came up, he gave them all a series of melodramatic groans about how much it hurt, but he was out of the water and ready to go in a heartbeat.

"Grab the rope at the next knot," one of the boys was telling my daughter. She was eight years old and a handful and a half. Without fear and equipped with a cunning intelligence, smart and foxy in both ways, a real beauty that would manipulate the males around her with a bat of her long eyelashes or a toss of her auburn hair. Right now she was starkers with a few other girls and, for me, far too many boys. The boys didn't know the trouble they had along with them.

"Now run as hard as you can and when you get out over the water, let go and dive in," the boy was telling her. It was Joe. One of my nephews or a second cousin, hard to keep 'em all straight when you only see them once a year. Anyway, Jennifer grabbed the rope and took off running for all she was worth, sailed up and let go just a bit early. Instead of dropping into the water, she sort of skipped across the surface then splashed in a great heap of water. As soon as she came up for air and started dog paddling for shore, there were cheers and the next kid took the rope. They all got to swing, though there were a couple somewhat older girls that weren't swimming, sitting together fully clothed and trying very hard to ignore the fun around them. Ah, shyness, what a handicap.

After a bit they were all on the bank laughing and giggling. One of the boys made a grab for a girl's butt and she turned around and got hold of his little willie, holding it just tight enough to make her point before letting the boy go. Then there was another attempt at grab ass and the fight was on. Watching a dozen naked, preteen kids trying to cop feels and get away with it was a pleasure to be sure, a bit of my own fantasy game being played out right in front of me.

Jennifer, fully accustomed to running around naked as much as she could get away with, I let her as much as possible don't you know, didn't have trouble with trying to hide her charms. She grabbed a ten year old boy, pulled his face to hers and gave him a lingering kiss. All the other kids squealed and giggled but the boy just blushed red as a beet. A moment later one of the girls gasped and pointed. Sure enough, Jennifer's kiss had gotten the better of him and he had four inches of boyhood standing proud. (Where did she learn to do that, anyway?) ......(cont)