A "dam" good time was had by all!

Sam, preparing to chuck large quantities of rocks into the river.

With Jeanette studiously teaching the laziest 5th grade class in the West Covina School district on this fine MLK day, Sam and I joined up with my family in Ojai to visit some old haunts of my childhood.
My grandparents moved from South Pasadena decades ago and bought a piece of land adjacent to the Ventura River which contained many "mobile estates" as an investment. Of course all are in denial of the fact that it was more accurately a trailer park. There are no tornadoes in this narrow valley, however the river bed, while a small stream now, has been known to become a quarter mile wide torrent that has overrun its banks and transport car-size boulders, and some unfortunate cars, downriver.

Cousin Maryn has been a good baby wrangler and an unofficial big sister.

Must...throw...rock!

In summers, and in times when the river had a heavier flow, my family and cousins would spend considerable time constructing dams for the resulting swimming holes and floating in inner-tubes down long stretches of boulder-strewn mini-rapids.

It was chilly today but there was water, there were rocks and there was the unstoppable urge to throw them in. To my delight, Samantha also caught the bug and I think she would have ground Barbie dolls beneath her shoes on her way to lobbing rocks at edge of the river.

Splashing the younger cousins with ever increasing sized rocks into the water gave way to moving big rocks to form an easier path across the stream. I remembered those past summers all the more while dumping large rocks in place and looking back to see Sam scrambling in the mud looking for the next rock that needed to be thrown into the mix. A small contribution to the greater whole.

Everyone correctly mentions that Sam looks like a clone of her mom and then they turn to me with that uncertain look while attempting to find that elusive contribution. Do you mean more than a Y chromosome? Don't worry about it. At the river, Sam was with her dad chucking rocks into the water and listening intently I'm sure on how to find the perfect stone for skipping. I'll take that as my own.