Crick

“Do you want to go to the CRICK?” my cousin asked.  We were in the mid upper part of Wisconsin.   There is a definite Yankee accent here; or, as my father called it the ‘Northern northly forked tongue.’ 

My cousin had blonde hair and blue eyes.  She looked like a person of Swedish decent. She might as well have been.  My friend, Kathy, looked at me.  I looked at her.  We were both wondering what she meant by, “Do you want to go the C-R-I-C-K?” The two of us had lived most of our lives in the South, in Oklahoma.  A Crick was something you got in your neck or a noise that a piece of furniture made.  

Staying around the farm again didn’t seem like much fun so I ventured a few guesses in my head.  Could this mean a trip to the store? A walk down the farm road lane or the one across the main highway?  That was something we had already done a few thousand times.  It was getting late so I knew it had to be something we could do in the dark.

Kathy’s head was spinning and spitting up guesses just as fast as mine.  I wondered, in between my brain work, what she thought.  Boy these Northern folk can sure be weird with their talking sometimes.

Almost in unison we both said, “CRICK?”

My cousin said, “Sure the CRICK.  Haven’t you city guys ever been to a crick before?  We will make sure you are okay and don’t fall in!”

Finally, we knew what she meant; and said together, “The C-R-E-E-E-K.”