In the summer my dad would close the store at noon and take a half a day off. We knew that if we had all of our chores done we might get to go swimming at Lake Russell in Cornelia, GA.
Some days in the summer whenever it was Blackberry season we would have to each pick a gallon of blackberries so that we could go swimming. It was an incentive to start early in the morning before the sun came up and the day got extremely hot to pick the berries.
If you have never picked blackberries in the summer you have missed a lot. First you had to find a patch that had fresh berries, then you had to walk thru the briers to get to the patch since most berries were in the middle of the patch. You would get bit by chiggers and your legs would itch to death and you didn't have time to stop and scratch.
As soon as your gallon was full you went home and waited for dad to get home so that we could go swimming.
As a child it seemed a long way to go to get to the lake but a short trip to come home. It was up in the hills of North Georgia and the lake was spring fed. The sun would warm the water up bu as you swam you would come into some very cool mountain water. They had canoes that you could rent and go out on the lake and fish or just canoe. They also had some pedal boats for one person or for two. If you had the double oedal boat and you partner was pedaling in one direction and you in the other direction you would just go around in circles.
At Lake Russell they had picnic areas and we usually ate a picnic lunch after we swam awhile and then we had to wait about 30 minutes before we could swim because this was to keep us from getting cramps in our legs from eating??
There were some geese at the lake and if they didn't get fed they would peck at you while you were standing on the shore. We thought that we would jump into the water and get away from them forgetting all the while that they were great swimmers.
After and afternoon of swimming it was time to pack up and head home. We would wrap up in our towels and enjoy the cool breeze of the air from the windows on our ride home and wait until the next Wednesday to do it all over again.
Palmer Waters
