GREEN ACRES LAKE
CLOVIS: "LAND O' LAKES"
by Bobby Snipes,
Guest Writer
(MIL'S note: Having grown up in Clovis, beginning
in 1938, and left for college in 1951, I have remembered
few, if any lakes in or around town---except maybe those
low places that always filled when it rained. There is a
basic rule of boyhood, that I have realized in later years:
boys are very interested in the geology and topography of
their milieus. Bob is simply bringing me up-to-date.)
GREEN ACRES LAKE
The lake with the carp is the football stadium lake. For years
when we would get several good rains as you remember, the
water would cover the road which was North Main. Even after
they raised the street's height rains would still cover the road and fill
the football field.
Finally, about 12-15 years ago they put in a drain which would
carry the water underground to Commerce Way and Sheldon.
I think it would drain by the zoo and then passed through a
canal going south and would end up in a playa lake by the dump
grounds.
It is now Green Acres Park... well kept with shelters all around,
a skate board area, tennis area, basketball area and a concrete
walk path all around the lake. Really nice! They stock it in the
summer with catfish and trout in the winter. Has a lot of ducks
and geese that you can feed-----just a real nice park which Clovis
can be proud of.
Of course, it has carp. They seem to just fall out of the air; also
some big gold fish which are essentially carp, grown up. I guess
people get tired of their pet fish and they take them to the lake
instead of flushing them down the commode.
DENNIS CHAVEZ PARK
You remember that lake west of the Memorial Hospital....well,
they also made it into a park. When we were kids, we played
around that lake catching tadpoles and water dogs; well, 14th
Street ended at the lake. People gradually built houses all
around the lake and a few times when we had lots of rain, it
filled that lake and flooded some houses.
Eventually, the city made some kind of a deal with Eastwood
Construction to raise 14th Street and the co. dredged the north
side of 14th and made it a real deep lake and it holds a lot of
water. I don't remember it flooding any houses after that but I
have seen water over 14th Street. They named it Dennis Chavez
Park and it has a few picnic tables and trees. Just last year the
state started stocking it with catfish and trout also. Now you
have a brief history of the old playa lakes that we played in and
around when we were boys.
PLAYING "PIRATES" ---FOOTBALL STADIUM LAKE
Did Art ever tell you about losing his glasses in that football stadium
lake? One day Art and I were riding our bikes all over town----
just riding, it was the fun thing to do. We ventured east on 13th
Street and they were erecting the water tower. For some reason
or another they were not working but they had that center water
tube laid out for erection. Well, Art and I rode up to that tube and
it was about 5' in diameter so we rode our bikes through that tube
several times. It was fun but we finally got tired of that and drifted
on north to the football field and the lake.
As we were riding up to the lake we noticed what looked like a
raft that someone had very shoddily put together, obliviously to
play on the lake. Well, our adventuresome spirit got the best
of us and we thought we would play pirates and navigate the
lake.
We pushed off, never mind that our shoes, socks and pants
were getting sopping wet. We got out just a ways and we began to
notice those creepy looking black and yellow waterdogs and
we began having second thoughts. Then whoa,,,,,the raft started
coming apart! We were fumbling and falling in the water and in the
commotion, Art's little horned rim glasses fell in the water and
disappeared to the depths of that muddy lake.
Oh mercy! He began to cry and I cried because he cried. We
barely held the raft together and paddled back to the shore. We
were wet as two drowned rats. We were no longer pirates of old,
but we were two little boys crying because we had to go home
with no glasses and tell Mother.
Actually, I think that we feared that we would get the spanking of
our lives. Oh, how we hated to face Mother and tell her the glasses
were gone, and tell her how we lost them, when we shouldn't have
been there in the first place. Well, God bless her sweet heart, we
didn't get a spanking but we did get the lecture of our lives; after all,
those glasses cost $12.00.
Yes Mil, Green Acres Lake is about half of a mile from our house,
and that's where I caught the carp mentioned in my "CARPE DIEM"
story.
DENNIS CHAVEZ PARK
DENNIS CHAVEZ PARK
*********30********* BY "COUNTRY BOY BOB"
For MIL'S Place
7/22/13
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