Ye Ol’ Swimmin’ Hole

I've already posted, many times, about the feeling of Nostalgia. The warm feeling (with a tinge of regret) of stepping back in time to a world that is basic, more primitive (wait, don't yell about me being elitist, I used the word on purpose). And Porterdale and areas south of there are prime examples of a world that is slightly out of time with the rest of the world. And that's a good thing. It is refreshing to know that just a few miles away there is a place that has remained the quiet Georgia town where life has continued unabated for years.

I say this because today I went down to Lake Jackson, to a well known swimming hole off of Factory Shoals Road. I've been going there for years, ever since my brother's friend showed us how to get there. there's a large rock just in from the road where the river gets really deep, and you can jump off and not hit the bottom of the river. There was once a tree that overlooked the beach area, and the kids climbed up on it and jumped off into the lake part. It's been knocked down by streams and storms since I took the picture of it.

Unfortunately, the lake (river rapids...it's right on the edge of the lake becoming the Alcovy River) has suffered from the drought, and the rocks on the river are showing above the water. It's good in one since, because manuvering through the river becomes much more of a challenge, trying to keep from getting your feet (and your bag with your wallet, camera, cell phone...etc) from getting wet. A great way to exercise your mind and body at the same time.

I only hope that, with Newton County becoming one of the fastest growing areas in the country, that they will be able to keep Porterdale from exploding into a Conyers type town, filled with restaurants and Walmarts and other things that you have to drive way too far to get to and drive the smaller businesses to bankruptcy, and that they will keep the natural beauty of Lake Jackson and the Alcovy River in tact.

Above, I used the word primitive as a reference to Russeau's idea of the "Noble Savage, " a Romantic idea that makes one revere and appreciate the more un-technological way of living. It's hard for me to describe it, actually, because I almost put "uncivilized" in that last sentence. See, it's hard for our culture, as progressive as it is, as driven toward technology and electronic devices sold at any of the major chains like I described above, to appreciate the simpler life without looking at it as somehow inferior. I say this because I do not wish to itimate that I think that way. I would give up most every technological advance to live much as the people in rural towns do, to live in a small shack next to a lake and call it my own. But then, I would go crazy, and I couldn't do it. The need for Internet and cell phones and cable TV is just too much ingrained into my psyche. It's that dependency on all this commercially developed necessities makes me feel like I'm somehow weaker than my rural neighbors who might not have as much as I, but still lives their lives with comparable happiness.

But I had fun, although I didn't get to swim as much as I'd like (the beach area, in the evening, is filled with fishermen, and it's hard to swim with fishing lines whizzing over your head. And the rock area didn't have any people there, and I don't want to swim alone and get into an accident and do that whole drowning thing.) I only wish my friends could come up (or down) and see the beauty of this area for themselves.

The Rock:

The tree that was at the Beach area: