It is hot in Little Egypt. Typical for the latter half of May. I was not a big fan of summer as a youngster as we had no air conditioning. When you have no AC and enter a business that has a drawing of Old Man Winter on the glass front door blowing cold air inside the Ben Franklin Dime Store on a hot June day you want to shop there often and marvel at the extreme chill as compared with the outside furnace.

That is where my love for Pounds Hollow began. When you were in the Pounds Hollow Lake it was heavenly. It did not matter if it was 100 degrees as long as you were immersed in the natural cool waters. It was another world. I was not a sports enthusiast but I loved swimming. When floating your ears are covered by the friendly waters and all of the world is yours.

‘Let’s swim out into the deep waters,’ Chet said with a gleeful laugh. ‘I have heard that there is a door in the woods on the other side of the Lake,’ he added.

‘What a fine red door,’ Jane said as she decided to swim into the dark deep with Chet and Billy B. ‘Who would have built a door in the woods and painted it red,’ she asked?

‘I swear it looks like the door to a church I attended many years ago,’ Neva J said with amazement! ‘For my memory, the Red Door could not be opened,’ she continued. ‘I always wondered what was behind the Red Door,’ Neva J said mysteriously.

‘Come in good friends,’ an old man said as he pulled the Red Door open.’ ‘I am Billy B and I have been waiting a long while for you…’