Rat Tail Island

Dear Ian:
Near enough, as it goes, to the same neighborhood as the Magic Tree and the Witch Pond, you could see Rat Tail Island.

We had a perfect view of the island from the hill behind our house. Down the slope, across the railroad tracks, and in the fast moving channels of the St. Louis river sat Rat Tail Island. I suppose it got its name by virtue of the fact that it skinny and long and nearly devoid of any tree of any type. In reality, it was simply a very long, narrow sandbar.

For us, however, it was temptation.

The older boys built rafts or stole canoes and snuck out to Rat Tail Island to drink beer, set muskrat traps, smoke cigarettes and swear.

I never made it to Rat Tail Island myself. We moved away from the neighborhood before my chance ever arose.

And silly me, I never thought of the fact that the river froze over, year after year, and if I really had wanted to, all I had to do was walk out there on some December afternoon.

But that wouldn't really have been the same now would it?