It's that time of year again when friends gather, get all liquored up, and go out and do something really stupid. No I'm not talking about new years parties, I'm talking about the annual polar bear swim at one mile. For you out of town readers that may not know what I'm talking about, we have this annual tradition that started about twenty years ago when two intellectually challenged good ole boys from Arkansas were visiting town and went down to 'One Mile' park to check out the creek that was flooding over it's banks. They were missing their annual "Muck Diving" event back home where every January 1st drunken locals gathered at "the old stink hole", a pond out off route 65 where all of the town sewage was disposed.

This particular tradition started out with a group of mostly guys standing around the sewage pond and drinking while taunting each other to jump in, which they never did. Then one year, somebody actually did. This was a 265 pound teenager wearing bibbed overalls with a mouth full of "chaw" and two front teeth missing who enjoyed picking young boys up by the seat of their pants and smashing their heads together while saying "Gotchya dumbasses". Nobody knew why she jumped in, but when she did, everybody else just kind of looked at each other for a second, let out a hoot and holler, and dived in behind her. As the tradition evolved, the crowds began showing up wearing their "shit happens" T-shirts.

Anyway, these two guys were standing at "One Mile" on New Years morning watching the freezing waters cresting over the concrete banks when one of them says to the other, "Hey Leroy, I dare ya to swim across." And Leroy says back to his friend, "Do ya triple dare me?" And his friend says back to him, "More than that, I double dare ya!" after which a drunken Leroy jumped into the raging current and drowned. Onlookers at the pool that morning reportedly heard Leroy shouting out, "Hey this don't smell bad at all!", just before his final descent under the swift current.

And that's how the annual polar bear swim at one mile began. Each year on January 1st, Chicoans get all liquored up and gather at one mile creek to swim across. As the tradition goes, everybody stands around for 30 minutes doing double and triple dares to each other until a pistol is fired, at which point everybody jumps in, pretending their having a good time. They swim 50 yards to the other side, get out, wipe the panic from their faces long enough to pose for a picture, and then proceed to get more liquored up. If you have to get pulled out or if you suffer a heart attack during the swim, you are forever known as a "Leroy".

The difference between our tradition and the one back in Arkansas at "the old stink hole", well besides the obvious difference, is that the locals who partake in the Chico tradition are mostly educated professionals, much too smart for jumping into raw sewage. I mean really, jumping into raw sewage in the middle of winter? That's just plain dumb.