Bulldozers dismantled the Canasawacta Creek dam Wednesday, destroying one of the last great places where it’s OK to get a rash.

Growing up I, like many, often spent summer afternoons there. Shooting down the rapids through one of the dam’s two gaps, we’d take the current in-between the cement walls, spill out the other side, scrape our backs across jagged rocks and cut our feet fighting back upstream to do it again. During breaks from the water we’d stand on the dam, skip stones, itch hives (some say it was scabies, most likely related to the odd number of dead cats and junk snowmobiles sometimes found in the water) and heckle kids swimming in the nearby Kurt Beyer Public Pool (not surprisingly, most of the “mama’s boys” in the pool have gone on to become successful bankers, doctors and attorneys). Those were the days.

But the fate of the Canasawacta Creek dam is just another sad chapter in every local swimming holer’s story. Young and old, we are quickly watching our way of life disappear.

Here’s a list of other legendary swimming spots that are endangered, extinct or off limits:

• “Hart’s”

Location: Canasawacta Creek

Shoes: required

Chance of serious injury or infection: high

Fun scale: 10

Status: Extinct